


Continuation of The Star-Filled Sky

by KakyuuCrimsonstar



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Norse Religion & Lore, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Complete, F/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Past Torture, Tense change in last few chapters is on purpose, Turning and Turning series, tasertricks - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-02-12 09:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 28
Words: 71,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12956304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KakyuuCrimsonstar/pseuds/KakyuuCrimsonstar
Summary: A continuation of "The Star-Filled Sky" by of_raven_wings





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Star-Filled Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172981) by [of_raven_wings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/of_raven_wings/pseuds/of_raven_wings). 



> I thought a story that good needed a conclusion.  
> This is a continuation of http://archiveofourown.org/works/1172981

Continuation of The Star-Filled Sky

 

 

     The brittle crunch of feet punching through the thin snow-crust rouses Darcy from her doze. She blinks grit from her eyes, shuddering. Had it been nothing but a dream then, the Blackwoods in the basement and Loki’s visit, the solid shape of him, the warmth of the coffee, the black velvet of Hel’s magic, her promise? The air in the kitchen still smelled of him – ozone and leather, the faintest musk and smoke – and Darcy shudders again, longing a sharp splinter in her chest, heart aching and weary.

     No. None of it a dream. All of it a nightmare.

     In the distance black clouds roll heavy across the horizon. The darkest part of winter may have yet been done but no one had told Mother Nature. The temperature around the cottage plummets so fast Darcy can feel the pressure change; soon new snow would fall. She can taste it in the air, a thick, wet taste. This snowfall will not let up for some time.

     Darcy chokes back a horrified laugh. She would be alone – _again_ – during the coming blizzard. Her nails dig deep into her palms and the sickly sweet smell of rot fills the room, chasing away the lingering remnants of leather and musk.

     _Never alone, my darling_ , Hel murmurs in her mind. _Never alone again. Mine. Always mine, my sweet daughter. Where you walk, so do I. Where we tread, even the stars shall crumble and become as dust and ash beneath our soles. We are the end and the beginning, so long as we are together. We’ll sing the stars awake and watch the world burn._

     “Darcy?” There are boots tapping on the porch, a lighter creak and then a heavier tread - two guests, Fionnula and Bran, come to fulfill their promise to check on her. “Lass, are you awake?”

     Refusal sits heavy in Darcy’s mouth – a demand to be left alone with Hel, for them to forget about her as she’d known all the others had, but Darcy is weak, and lonely, and oh so very tired. The warning dies on her tongue. The magic, _her_ magic, is buried beneath the black, imprisoned in the darkness.

     For a brief moment the velvet and cold within Darcy’s mind recedes once more, warmth pricking her fingertips. Then a pause, as if considering, before the cold surges forth again, radiating through Darcy’s sinew and bone, creeping across her chest. Darcy grunts and rubs fingers across her thin shirt, cursing the itch and weight; too hot even now.

     Breathing deep takes effort and will, bands of cold stretched taut across her ribs. Darcy’s breath gusts out in plumes, silver-white and cloudy.

     _These two._ _Go to them_ , Hel whispers, comforting Darcy with gentle strokes, filling her with acceptance and calm. _Show them my strength. Let them know whom you call mother_.

     The door creaks open at the faintest touch of her hand, the noise cutting the winter’s utter stillness like something out of a horror movie. Behind her, Darcy hears a light bulb fizzle and die with a sharp pop. The rest of the lights flicker momentarily and dim, before dying completely. The rumble of the fridge sighs and stills; the power cut once more.

Fionnula takes a step back as Darcy slips into the doorway. The icy air eddies around her shoulders and distantly Darcy realizes that she ought to be freezing, the paper-weight tights and tank top too thin for even the sunniest of summer days, but she can’t bring herself to care. Darcy tilts her head forward so the weight of her hair slipped over her shoulder. There are strands of silver there she’d never noted before, shining amid the darker tresses.

Had Loki seen the silver? He was observant, he must have, but he’d said nothing. His whole visit was odd, off. Had he _really_ come when she’d called? Something buried deep within Darcy frets at that thought but is soothed by velvet magic and soft darkness. Nothing matters now. She is home.

“I see you’ve made your choice then,” Fionnula murmurs, setting down the overfull basket she hefted at Darcy’s feet. Bran said nothing, but a small frown curves his mouth downward. His fingers twitch, as if he would reach out, and Darcy crosses her arms beneath her bust to ward him away. Right now, she knew, her touch was ice, even to these. Perhaps _especially_ to these two.

“I thought I was abandoned,” she admits, surprising herself with her candor. “I thought they’d left me to rot and die here.”

“They did,” Bran says bluntly, dark hair falling over his warm amber eyes, his earthen scent filling her senses, the faintest tinge of green things, of growing, and rich loam, and black soil, and tender, thin shoots stretching up to the cold winter sun. Darcy yearns toward him for an instant, then pulls back, confused. “Look at you.”

Darcy doesn’t have to look down to know that the crescents holes her nails had dug were dripping black and rot once more, a thin patter in the entryway, the smell marking this place as surely as if she’d posted a sign.

“Hush,” Fionnula retorts sharply. “No paths we walk are the wrong ones. There must be balance, you know that, you accepted that. She’s just joined with the dark lady, that’s all. I’d think the likes of _you_ would be happy at that, boyo. The green-man will be pleased.”

Bran swallows convulsively and nods once, looking away. From this distance, his height and width, the trimness of him and smooth, lithe musculature, Darcy is once again struck how Bran is very nearly Loki’s size. If he put those large hands on her and she closed her eyes, sank into his warmth and solidity, she could imagine Loki there, holding her.

A brief shudder in her chest forces Darcy back into the moment, guilt creeping in her gut before the blackness smothers it down and Darcy is… grateful. Now that Hel walks with her she knows she will feel no fear or embarrassment, no guilt.

What use is guilt to the dead?

“The world is made of blood and bone and stars,” Darcy whispers, eyes fluttering shut, and _feels_ Fionnula still like a deer scenting the hunter, a rabbit discerning the fox in the bushes. “See how the stars burn, waking up one by one. Born in flame, born in blood. A blood-dimmed tide, burning this world to ash.”

“And from the ash the world wakes, sleeps, and wakes again. Forged from darkness, reborn anew, blood to water the earth, the earth to accept the sacrifice with gratitude and grace. Bones of the old earth support the new, as the mother to the babe.” Fionnula replies evenly and there is a _zing_ with Darcy, a bright flare of hope, like the flicker of a flame guttering and flaring in a dank, black cavern, lit against stone. When Hel had spoken those words to her, the despair had curled into her, sank in its sharp canines and rent her heart asunder. But in Fionnula’s mouth the words are more - light to balance darkness, hope to offset despair.

“Then the green comes, creeping,” Bran continues, and Darcy feels his fingertips ghost across her bare, icy shoulder. They are calloused, but calloused _wrong_ somehow, and Darcy knows that deep, deep inside her the memory of Loki’s touch stirs and presses against the black, “and with it, dapples the stars. The night no longer distant, the sky no longer black, the lights friends, the moon a sister. The stars rest, sink into sleep, and stand vigil once again.”

Darcy nods but it is disjointed and wrong. Her head feels loose on her neck, like the tendons and muscles that held her upright had begun to part from her flesh and bone. She reaches out to him – Bran might not be Loki, but he understands, she knows, understands and accepts her mistake. His palm curves over her knuckles, his touch gentle and protective. Darcy’s heart thuds hard twice. Tears prick her eyes. Bran smells of rich, black soil, of green and growing things, and in a flash she recalls a field of golden wheat stretching as far as her eyes can see, turned up to the sun, basking in the baking afternoon light. Darcy would dart among those stalks, hair and threadbare skirt catching rough leaves, soles bare against the dust and dirt, toes curling into the warmth of the turned soil and all around her the wind rustling the wheat until it lulled her like a summer lullaby; a sweet and sleepy siren song. Blessedly alone amid the stalks. Safe in her solitude, away from the belt, her father’s hands, her brother’s ignorance, and her mother’s poison tongue. Alone, as she’s always been alone, but then her solitude was a balm.

Now… not as much.

“You’re not alone, lass,” Fionnula promises again and gathers Darcy into her arms. Bran’s hand drops and Darcy goes, limp and still, feeling Fionnula shudder against her. Knows that the ice that has formed around her soul is creeping outward, seeking to absorb Fionnula’s warmth. And yet, despite the charnel chill, Fionnula is not deterred, her hands stroke and comfort, her touch is kind and considerate. “Darcy, we are here. You are one of us, lass. I know you walk the shadow path but we walk the one just beside. You can always, _always_ call out to us and know that you’re never alone. We accept you as you are.”

“It’s hard, sometimes,” Bran continues, rubbing one huge hand up and down his wrist, fingering the curling edges of his own god-scar. His is a lovely thing, like leaves and dappled shadows edged in sunlight, yellow and golden and verdant green along the spaces in between. “You’ve been accepted, marked. You’re her mouthpiece now, until she has done with you. It is… uncomfortable at times, I won’t lie, but also freeing, in a way. They give us what we need most and in return we grant them full movement in the mortal world until-“

“Until the stars are fully roused,” Darcy chokes out, a rime of icy tears slipping down her cheeks and suddenly Bran’s strong arms are there again, lifting her up, and the touch of him is scalding. Eyes flying open, Darcy bites back her cry of pain as Bran strides across her house and tenderly deposits her yet again on the bed in the master suite.

“You’re starting to make a habit of that,” Darcy can’t help but joke, searching out whatever thin humor there is to be had in this overwhelming, horrifying situation.

Bran says nothing but the corners of his eyes crinkle, his expression warms, something impish and sweet darting through his eyes. “Perhaps one day I’ll join you there.”

Darcy’s mind stutters to a stop at the insinuation and Bran smiles and steps back, making room for Fionnula as she bustles into the room, leaning over and smoothing pillows as she goes. With her eddies the sweet scent of cinnamon and spice, wool, and just faintly a tinge of smoke, warmth and hearth and home.

Outside the snow has begun to drift in earnest again, blanketing the world until all is still and freshly white. Darcy can’t stop the choked noise that bubbles in her chest; tears sting her eyes and she closes them again, curling into a ball on the bedspread, feeling the coming chill like a siren song in her breath and bones. She feels Fionnula move around her, tucking her in beneath a thin sheet, the layer smothering heat and pressure, before drifting away as Darcy settles and stills. Darcy thinks to throw the sheet off but doing so would be rude and she’s just so very, _very_ tired.

“Sleep, love,” Fionnula murmurs from the doorway of the room, content that Darcy is on her way to resting well. “We’ll return soon as we can.” There is another brush of calloused fingertips, this time across her lips, hesitating a bare moment against her cheek, before Bran moves to join Fionnula in the doorway and the pair of them retire. The door creaks closed and their steps clump across the porch.

 _Mine_ , Hel murmurs, the velvet sweeping slowly across Darcy’s senses.

“Yours,” Darcy agrees and gives up.

The grey encroaches and Darcy slips down again, down, down, down into sleep.

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

 

     Darcy dreams.

     She didn’t expect to dream. Darcy expected blackness and stillness and the dark slipping around her like an old friend, drawing her deeper, deeper down.

     Instead she opens her eyes and finds herself in a forest. The trees are mostly bare around her, branches stretching spindly to the sky, fingers grasping toward the heavens, the grey curl of clouds sifting snow down, down, down about her.

     Darcy turns in the snow, feeling it fall heavily on her shoulders, brushing soft kisses across her lips and cheeks. It is warm to the touch, and soft, and Darcy slides her fingers greedily through a local snow bank, gathering the warm snow in her palms and watching as the edges crystalize and harden, brittle now and sharp.

     “They say these trees are dead,” a voice behind her says, “but we know they’re only sleeping, don’t we? Resting. Waiting. Like you. Come Spring they’ll shake off all this snow, drink it up, and grow and grow and grow.”

     Turning, Darcy smiles at the man. He dressed all in green leaves, seven feet tall, and wild about the face. Darcy knows him from somewhere but can’t quite place when or where; his face known in fits and flashes. He means her no harm though, she can tell, his smile is gentle and warm, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Hello.”

     “You’ve wandered far from your resting place yet again, little one. You ramble more than any other I’ve ever known. We might as well make the best of it, though. Care to go for a walk with me?” the green-man offers.

He stretches out a huge hand and for one brief moment some horrible memory tries to surface – thick, rough fingers, hard on her wrist, and pain, and tearing and tears – but these hands are not those hands, and this face is not the one flickering in her memories.

 _Your father is dead_ , Hel whispers in her mind. _He cannot harm you here_. Darcy willingly rests her hand in his and is surprised at how rough his palm is.

     “Come,” the green-man says and guides her. They leave no footprints in the snow, gliding across the top as if spirits, and Darcy is beset by that rich smell again, of growing things, and tender shoots, and melting spring snowfall. Apple blossoms and cherry trees and marigolds and lush, green grass and a long, tumbled expanse of feathery purple heather.

     Of _promise_.

     “Here,” the green-man says and kneels down beside a thicket, snarled with dead branches. Darcy kneels beside him, the snow delightfully soft around her, and reaches out, drawing aside the clattering wood with a sound of wind easing whistling through the sleeping branches. She can feel the warmth deep within the sticks, knows the roots are buried deep and well beneath her, dormant now but soon to stretch and grow, and expand.

     In the deepest part of the thicket there is a small noise, tiny, and a few drops of red, bright against the snow. She can feel the heat of life there, a mouse, grey and white, eyes liquid black and heart thrumming hard beneath the soft plush fur. Darcy’s fingers itch to brush along that silky fur, to test the tiny goes against the tips of her nails, but stops herself.

Beneath the mouse there is a slowly growing pool of expanding red, the pulse of blood from the torn legs splayed out beneath the thicket, and Darcy can taste blood on the air, feel the poor thing past the point of terror, pain and suffering a staccato beat in the icy air. Nearby, in the far bushes, a stray cat waits. The tom’s belly growls, its ears are laid back, and the cat hisses at them, but it does not move, jealous of the prey. Darcy knows that when they are gone the feline will brave the sharp edges of the thicket for the mouse once more. It has only retreated, she realizes, because of them.

     “Help it,” the green-man urges. “Stop the suffering. Mercy, child. Show mercy.”

     “I don’t want to,” Darcy whispers even as her fingers stretch out. The tiny squeaks of pain set up a hot ache in her heart. “I don’t want this. I don’t want to _be_ this.”

     “Shhh,” whispers the green-man as Darcy’s fingertips reach the tiny rodent and begin stroking the fur between its ears. It is softer than Darcy imagined, softer than anything she’d ever felt before. Something small inside of her breaks apart, weeps and wails, and is smothered beneath a wave of thick, comforting velvet.

     The mouse beneath her hand has grown still.

     “Now the tom shall eat,” the green-man says, rising from his squat and offering a hand to Darcy. She rises, realizes that her feet are bare, and curls her toes in the snow to steady herself. The cold is a comfort, a balm. “And in time,” the green-man continues, “the tom too shall require your touch.”

     “Great,” Darcy mutters, surly now. “Just what I always wanted. To be handmaiden of Death.”

     The green-man laughs and it is a boisterous, booming sound. The clouds rumble in reply and Darcy thinks of Thor, wonders what the Asgardian would think of this green-man, of this place. Of what Loki would think.

     No. No time for that now. Darcy shoves all thoughts of Loki down deep within her soul, shuttering him away where the warmth of his smile, his vivid green eyes can’t disturb her thoughts. Briefly, a flash of warm amber surfaces instead and Darcy smothers that down too.

 _So_ very _much not the time, Darcy_ , she berates herself.

     “Didn’t you?” the green-man asks, still chuckling as if Darcy had told him a mighty joke. “You accepted her into your heart, did you not?”

     He presses one huge palm against her chest and if he’d been any other person, Darcy would have slapped him, but this is not a sexual touch, the feel of his bark-rough fingers is as sterile as a doctor pressing a scope to her front. Beneath his palm the finger-scars from Hel throb once and lie still and cold.

     “Without Death’s handmaidens, little one,” the green-man says, “there can be no life. No nutrients returned to the soil. No rebirth. Without death there would be only constant, perpetual growth. Unending consumption until all had been devoured, rendering your world was empty and bare and desolate. Barren.” He leans in close and his breath is fresh and sweet, flowers budding and soil after a warm rain, and Darcy leans helplessly toward him, heart stuttering painfully against her ribs. “I love Death, without words, beyond the scope of space and time.”

Inside her mind, Hel goes stock-still and Darcy can somehow sense her surprise… and her fear? What was there to fear from this tall man with the bark-rough hands and eyes green as a summer day? “You love her? You love Death?”

“Yes, reluctant handmaiden, I love her. I adore her. Without Death, there can be no me. Why do you think I give her so many gifts, little one? I send them forth with my adoration and she keeps them safe forevermore. We need one another and, even though she feels alone and forgotten and reviled, I _appreciate_ her. I adore her. I love her.”

     Darcy swallows hard as the admission that this man, this green-man, loves Hel crashes over and through her like a wave. It tosses her about, runs roughshod across her senses, swaying the core of her like a sapling in a stiff breeze.

     _Even Hel, even Death itself, had someone to love her_.

     Loki had thrown her away. Had strode back to the car without a second glance. Had run whatever test he’d been required to, and left. Not even a kiss goodbye. No promises to return. He’d just left. Again.

     Golden links around his neck.

     Death’s vow that he’d danced with another the night she begged for him and then the proof at his visit, the chain catching the thin winter sunlight, glinting, golden in the hollow of his neck.

     Darcy ached.

     “Don’t cry, little handmaiden,” the green-man murmurs, taking Darcy into his arms and rocking her like a baby. “Don’t weep.”

     _This_ , Darcy thinks, _is what a parent is supposed to do. This. Comfort. Love. Giving._

     “Why does life _hurt_ so much then?” Darcy gasps against his shoulder. “If you love her so, why do you send Death peop- no, _things_ , as broken as me?”

     The rocking stills and the green-man slowly pulls away, examining her face with sorrow etched between his eyes. He brushes rough thumbs across her tears, drying them. “Death is stillness, child. Death is serenity. I am neither. Even when all is cool and quiet, where life exists, there is movement and growth. Expansion. If life does not hurt, is not challenging, little one, how would you know you were alive?”

     “Not all life is pain,” Darcy retorts sullenly, suddenly contrary. “Jane’s seems pretty nice, overall.”

     “No, not all life is utter pain,” the green-man agrees readily, then tips his face forward so his forehead rests against Darcy’s. “But growth, true growth, does not come from stagnation. Growth requires discomfort, challenge, expansion… change. Pain. A child who grows too fast aches in their bones, their skin stretches and pulls leaving silver-white lines in their very flesh. But if they don’t grow, they wither and die. That which does not grow… ends.”

     “Did I grow too fast then?” Darcy asks bitterly. The memories are distant, cold, buried beneath the comforting weight of velvet but still beneath the surface of her thoughts. “What did I do, then, to deserve the life I’ve suffered? What growth was there for me? What lesson did I come away with other than tell anyone who claims they love me to fuck off because they’re lying? That no one can be trusted not even… not even…”

She chokes and cannot finish. Weeps.

     The fingers brushing through her hair still, the comforting rocking slows, and he gently grasps her chin, turning her face upward to contemplate her fully. His thumb runs along her lower lip and Darcy’s heart lurches in her chest, mingled pain and suffering and sorrow shot through with one quick bolt of desire. This man looks like Bran, like Loki, and he loves Death within her. “Would you believe that suffering such as yours is a benediction, Darcy Lewis? A blessing?”

     A shudder runs through Darcy as her name leaves the green-man’s lips. Had she told him her name? Or had he just known it?

     “Benediction?”

     “What is the human saying? ‘Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’ Is that it? Pain is a gift. A challenge. It shapes you and makes you and remakes you. In pain is where you find your purpose. _Your_ pain has shaped you into the perfect vessel for my ladylove. I owe you gratitude and grace. Without your pain, without your suffering there can be no salvation.”

     “That’s a filthy fucking lie!” Darcy snarls suddenly, shoving hard against the green-man and rolling out of his embrace. Her hair hangs in tangles around her face, silver-flecked and greasy, and Darcy can feel the hot fury coursing through her veins. Her heart thuds against her ribs, hard and insistent, and she feels frigid all of a sudden, the air biting at her exposed arms and legs, pins and needles rippling across her flesh in a torrent of sensation and muted agony.

     “What doesn’t kill you MAIMS you!” Darcy screams at him. She shouts so loudly that above her a flock of birds take flight, cawing and crying through the air, disturbed and complaining for all to hear. “What doesn’t kill you SLOWS YOU DOWN, it CRIPPLES YOU. It fucks you up! It RUINS the rest of your life! My suffering isn’t noble! It isn’t some grand thing. It’s made me small! It’s made me WEAK! It’s dragged me down and cost me EVERYTHING! And in the end, I’m still alone. That, THAT is what my suffering, my pain, has caused.”

     She falls to her knees in the now frigid snow, wrapping arms cold as stone around her torso, feeling tears hot as lava drip down her cheeks and sink into the soft white.

     There is a long beat of silence. Then another.

     “Only if you allow it.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

     Darcy gasps herself awake.

     Her heart thuds painfully against her ribs, and her breath plumes hot from her mouth. She is shivering violently, teeth chattering, and her skin is blue-white from the cold. Slowly Darcy sits up. It is monumental effort and she can feel hard claws deep inside her rake against her innards, demanding that she still, and slow, and sleep again, but Darcy fights the velvet whispers and struggles upward, off the bed, staggering out the master bedroom and toward the fireplace.

The entire cottage is frigid and white and silent and dim; the snow has risen so high up the windowpane that only the faintest sliver of jet-black sky laden with clouds peeks through. There is no moon.

“Fire,” Darcy manages to mumble and gathers up her sweaters from the couch, where she’d discarded them after Loki’s visit, and pulls them laboriously on one at a time. Numb fingers scrabble at the edge of the blanket before finally, ages later, pulling it down, and around, and hauling it up over her shoulders.

Slowly – too slowly – Darcy fumbles with the wood and the matches and the crumpled newspaper stacked in a neat pile next to the tinderbox. When the first miniscule flame begins eating at the edge of the paper, Darcy cries a little, the relief a hot stone deep in her chest. When the kindling lights, she sobs a little harder, and when the first log truly catches, Darcy is outright bawling, every ache and pain rippling through her body, but for the first time the pain is not monumental, it is not devouring or too heavy to lift. For the first time, Darcy holds onto the pain with both hands, embraces it. The ache of muscles between her shoulder blades, the stinging from the crescent-mark cuts on her palms, the rough rumble of bubbling in her chest, a sharp sting in her throat and burning behind her eyes.

Thoughtfully, Darcy twists her wrist and presses the thin, white-scarred skin against her forehead. The flesh of her temple burns fever-bright.

“I’ve actually got the flu. All this, and I’ve actually gotten sick,” Darcy realizes and laughs until she cries and then cries until she starts helplessly laughing again. She is borderline hysterical, Darcy knows, but she can’t seem to stop herself. The numbness that has plagued her these past few months has lifted at last; the velvet of Hel’s voice is distant and muted.

Darcy glances to the two corners Loki’d looked to before, then tentatively sends a bit of Hel’s magic that way, expecting resistance but there is nothing there but dead equipment, dusty and forgotten. No observation, like the cuff – misdirection and chicanery.

Another of Loki’s lies.

Where was Hel, anyway? Shouldn’t she be right here, furious that Darcy is daring to laugh and cry and be so gauche as to warm herself by the fire? Hell, if she had the energy, Darcy would’ve made her way to the generator and started it up, boiled some milk for hot chocolate, and curled up in a nest by the fire. As it stands all that she’s going to be able to do is maybe, maybe, bat down one of the throw pillows on the couch and curl up near the fireplace. Hope she wakes in time to not actually freeze to death should it go out again.

Darcy prods the blank space within her and senses that Hel is still there but… there’s more. And less.

Hel within her seems… thoughtful.

“Mother?” Darcy asks, wondering and a little horrified at how easily the name slips from her lips. Well, what was that saying? In for a penny, in for a pound? And Hel, curt and cruel and manipulative as she sometimes is, has already been kinder than Darcy’s own mother ever was; in her own twisted, cold way Hel offers Darcy comfort and escape and serenity that she never had in the battered farmhouse of her childhood. “What’s wrong?”

No answer, not one in words anyway, but a flash of an impression, a moonlit sky, star-studded and black, and then rustling, leaves tossed in the wind. Stars winking into existence and then blinking out again. A wave of something like regret, an image of the bottle tree black now from root to tip, skeletal branches clacking together in the wind, truly dead, holding vigil over a damaged, decomposing world.

Then warmth. Small warmth, an orb, small and bright like the ones Loki would use in his confinement. Thin warmth, thin light, but enough. Flickering, flickering, but growing stronger, lighting more and chasing back the shadows. One by one, the stars in the sky settle.

Darcy blinks, confused.

She thinks to prod again, but her head throbs, and her eyes burn, and Darcy internally shrugs, turning to tend the fire. The grey seeps around the edges of her vision again and Darcy knows that if she doesn’t hurry, that she will pass out again and soon. Dimly she wonders how long the cookies she and Loki nibbled will last before she’s burnt out again. How many nights she’ll sleep this time. How much more close to death, her death, she’ll wander.

Darcy builds up the fire as best she can, reveling in it even as the rest of the house sucks at her back, the cold pressing between her shoulder blades, waiting for Darcy to give up once more.

Settled now, the blanket curled around her, Darcy slowly drifts off again.

This time, she doesn’t dream.

 

 

 

When the thin light of morning comes, Darcy wakes, fully feverish and stiff. Every bit of her aches and is sore, her throat feels as if razor wires have been embedded deep within, her temples throb with her pulse. Despite it all, Darcy feels alive and grateful.

Hel, surprisingly, is only a gentle weight in the back of her mind. No fury or vindictiveness, no pain or suffering. Just quiet contemplation.

A comfort, bizarre as it is. Nothing to be feared, Darcy realizes, Hel within her is an intractable reality, a future fact, and that knowledge is somewhat freeing. Before, when she struggled, Hel within her was terror incarnate. When she fought against Hel she felt like a worm on a hook, struggling and flailing and clawing for any hope, any chance to turn her face away, speared through her very center. But now, after that dream of the green-man, Darcy feels something new, something small, slowly curling and growing inside her.

Acceptance.

“Everything dies,” Darcy says aloud, looking into the black and sooty remains of the fire. “Dies and is born again.” She shivers and can’t help but smile. If she feels the cold, Darcy knows, she’s not entirely gone yet.

It takes effort to start the fire anew; it is black and dead in the hearth, but she manages. Then, crawling on hands and knees, Darcy laboriously makes her way to the kitchen. The power is still utterly out but Loki’s mug sits still in the drying rack and after much effort Darcy is able to haul herself up the counter, take the mug in trembling hands, and fill it to the brim with water from the tap.

She drinks the entire mug down in heavy glugs, ravenously thirsty, and regrets the decision instantly as moments later the water comes back up in a harsh torrent, along with bile. Darcy struggles to breathe, coughing and hacking mercilessly for several minutes, before her shudders cease and her heart rate slows.

“Haven’t puked like that since I first got here,” Darcy mutters to herself, an ache in her gut, frowning into the basin. Her early days in the cottage are distant and muted; Hel is hiding something from that time, several somethings, Darcy guesses, but she’s too tired to go prodding at the veil laid over the missing time.

The second cup of tepid water goes down more carefully, Darcy three-quarters sprawled against the counter for support, and then a third cup and a fourth, taken in painfully small sips until Darcy sloshes as she sinks back down and crawls again toward the fireplace. She has the strength to collapse on the couch but it is too cold even this close distance to the fire and Darcy quickly abandons the couch for the hearth once more. This time, though, she brings the other throw pillow with her to her uncomfortable nest. It’s a long shot but maybe two of them would keep the crick out of her neck.

“I should call for help,” Darcy says aloud but the thought is a distant one, her voice sounds small even to her ears.

 _Mother_? Darcy thinks and feels the faintest flutter of velvet in response. _Mother, am I dying now_?

She feels Hel considering her, weighing her, and when the affirmation comes, Darcy feels a sick lurch deep within her gut.

 _Rest easy, daughter_ , Hel murmurs in her mind, her cool voice a surprising comfort. It will take some time for Darcy to fully accept Hel, but she’s taken the first tentative steps. _It is not your time yet_.

 _Well_ , Darcy thinks to herself, _that’s new_. If anything she’d imagined that Hel would be chomping at the bit to sink those black claws into Darcy once more, but now Hel seems more… hesitant? Not remorseful, but definitely unwilling to swoop in and drag Darcy down into the dark again. Thoughtful and possessive of Darcy’s light. Protective, even.

 _Sleep, daughter_ , Hel soothes. _Rest and be well. I will take watch this day. Go now; ease yourself. The time is not yet ripe_.

Though Darcy swears she’s been awake only an hour or two, sleep comes easily again, stealing over her and drifting Darcy down the lake of dreams.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

     When Darcy stirs she finds herself in a room she’s never seen before. The room is massive and there are glass walls on three sides, letting in chilly, thin sunlight. The room is high above the earth, looking out over a city that can only be New York, and it takes Darcy a moment to suss out from the white floors, metal girding, and clean, minimalistic lines that she must be in Stark Tower, although much higher than she’s ever been before.

     There is an eating area and a kitchen off to one side, an entertainment section with a gigantic flat screen and futuristic-looking speakers, a long stretch of bar with mirror backing, and a deep pit in the middle of the floor, lined with comfortable looking couches, and a coffee table that currently has a decorative gas fire blazing a line merrily through the center, dancing over a trough of black volcanic rocks. Darcy drifts closer to the fire and lifts a hand. It goes right through the flames; she is unburned.

     A whirring nearby alerts Darcy and even though she’s certain that she won’t be seen, she drifts over to the kitchen area and tucks herself back behind a counter. The elevator at the far end of the room opens and several people spill out, talking together rapidly, gesturing to make points.

     Loki, Darcy is startled to realize, is one of them. All of them are clad in their battle gear, they are all dusty and beaten up and bloody, even Loki. He’s taken off his helm and the cut on his cheek stands out in sharp relief against his pale flesh. There are deep smudges beneath his eyes, exhaustion setting in, and the serpentine scar sliding across his cheekbone has thinned to a pale white line. He looks better than he had while trapped in confinement, but not much.

Darcy’s heart lurches painfully in her chest and it takes all she has not to skirt the edge of the counter and move closer to him, to trace the line of the scar and brush careful, loving fingers over the back of his neck. Then she remembers the last time they’d met, and a painful throb in her chest reminds her that as much as she loved Loki, the prince of Asgard had used her and thrown her away. Had lied to her. Had danced in someone else’s arms.

Darcy eyed the others but no one new stood out amid the mingled group. No one new who could have gifted Loki the chain gleaming around his neck. No one new to blame for stealing her Loki, for abandoning Darcy in the ass-end of nowhere. Her fingers itch and Darcy glances down, surprised to see her fingertips inky black, swirls of lace-like night slipping up her fingers and across her knuckles.

Hel, in her mind, is neither eager nor judgmental. Darcy can sense her there though, watching and waiting. Considering. Accepting. Cold clarity and purpose. Willing to help her with her vengeance.

There’s a sick lurch inside her as Darcy realizes this blackness is death’s touch, now hers to control, and it is wriggling – damn near eager – for her to touch someone, anyone. The tendrils are reacting to Darcy’s cold fury, Loki’s betrayal, and Darcy, horrified, clutches her hand to her chest.

Stark, the only one among them not bruised and battered, likely thanks to the suit, slides into the kitchen on stocking feet and calls out, “FRIDAY, order two of our usual after fight feasts and throw in a half dozen special pies from that pizza joint down on 5th that Point Break likes so much.”

He steps up to the fridge and pulls out a case of beer, brushing Darcy’s shoulder as he steps back to swing the door closed.

It’s the briefest of touches, Tony’s flesh slides right through her, but Stark gasps and the bottles clatter together as he lets them clunk to the countertop beside the fridge. His hand slaps up to the Arc Reactor in his chest and he gasps again, smacking it hard twice with his fist. Tony’s gone paper-white, sallow in an instant, and the sleepless circles beneath his eyes stand out like livid bruises against his flesh.

In seconds the Captain and Hawkeye and the Widow are gathered round, demanding to know if Tony is okay, if he should go to medical, is it the reactor, until Bruce pushes past the others, slings Tony’s arm over his shoulder and half-carries the billionaire back toward the elevator. Tony is stumbling like a drunk, leaning heavily on his friend. Darcy takes this chance to slip through the counter and well away from the others. Her heart is slamming against her chest and Darcy feels ill. Never in a million years would she have imagined just a touch could do that to another.

“Breathe, Tony,” Banner orders. “Nice and easy.”

Loki and Thor hesitate at the edge of the group, both silent and concerned, but Thor seems more worried than Loki. Her erstwhile love is frowning slightly, looking at the place where Darcy stood only moments before, brow furrowed. His fingers drift up, play with the chain about his neck and Darcy suddenly is furious again, ice no longer creeping across her chest but speeding like frost licking and spreading up a windowpane. She wants to stride across the room and rip the links from around his neck. She wants to stalk the tower until she locates Loki’s new love and throttle the woman with her bare, lace-covered hands.

She breathes heavily for a few moments before the first tears drip on her hands. Slowly Darcy raises her fists up, gazing in confusion on the silvery drops, and realizes that she is crying.

“I can’t,” Darcy whispers to herself. “If he loves her… I love him. I can’t hurt her, Loki would… I can’t hurt him. Either of them.” Darcy wraps shaking hands around her waist and sinks to the floor, tears flowing freely now, hot against her cheeks. Anger fled, she feels empty again. Cold. Hollowed out, a husk.

Cleansing, like fire, digging furrows in the shadowy expanse of Darcy’s soul.

 _Then let me_ , Hel urges. _Give in to me, daughter. Let me guide your hand_.

“Brother?” Thor asks as the elevator closes. “We should take the next car down. See to friend Stark.”

“A moment, Thor,” Loki says, slowly stepping toward the kitchen, all feline grace and purpose, pace smooth and even. “Can you not sense that?”

“You have ever been the more observant of the pair of us, Loki,” Thor replies easily, confusion writ plain upon his face. “What do you sense?”

“Magic,” Loki murmurs, lifting a palm and moving it where Darcy had stood. His fingers flex against the air. “Death magic.”

“Is it Hel?” Thor asks and Darcy is startled to realize that the normally boisterous Asgardian is actually _whispering_. She had never imagined Thor had it in him.

“I… I don’t know…” Loki scowls. “Curse these damn shackles.”

“Loki, soon-“

“Not soon enough!” Loki snaps shoving away from the kitchen counter and stalking into the living room. He is like a giant cat, all ruffled along the edges, and furious pacing. Loki jerks his hands through his hair, inhales sharply. “Days are slipping like sand between my fingers, Thor!”

“Your time isn’t even half done. Would you abandon it so readily? Aren’t you the one who has always counseled patience, brother?” Thor asks, surprisingly steady. He strides over to a display on the wall and punches in a staccato burst of numbers, pausing only to flick open a display toward the wall. Blue-white light bursts up from a table beneath and three figures rotate slowly in the light. A woman and two men, none of which Darcy recognizes. There is a timer counting down and a map beside the rotating figures, a small plane wending its way across Pennsylvania going north. It has nearly cleared the state line.

“Look, Loki, they are almost home. Their mission is over and all is well. Wanda shall return soon. You can meet her on the landing pad, if you must, if time is so short and suits you so ill. Do not fret.”

Darcy’s heart lurches against her chest and she bites back a sob. _Wanda_.

This must be the one Hel had spoken of, the one who danced with Loki and gifted him the golden chain. She slinks forward, edging around the brothers, to bend down and look at the three figures. A grinning black man with a pair of mechanical wings strapped to his back; a scowling, long-haired man gripping a sniper rifle, knives strapped to his thighs, with an arm forged of silver, jointed and strange; and a serene young woman with long, flowing brown hair and a red calf-length jacket.

 _Wanda_ , Darcy mouths and straightens. She can feel the cold boiling in her gut now that she’s gotten a look at this woman and it’s all Darcy can do to not reach forward and shove her black hand through Loki’s chest. Deep, deep inside her some part of Darcy is shrieking and screaming, but the cold is like a wave, icy and absolute, crashing over her. Even her vision shifts, as if a thin veil of blackness has fallen over her face. She feels as if she’s gazing through a mourning veil – the world is blurry and dim and dangerous.

Hidden in the lace, Darcy _growls_ , and the sound is startling but also freeing. Here. Here is her pain. Here is her suffering. Here is her fury, waiting all this time for her to finally, finally let go of the past and grip the future with lacey fingers.

At the last moment Darcy’s arm jerks out and her black fist stabs into the table housing the holograms. The pictures sputter and break apart in a shower of sparks and light and both Thor and Loki leap back, weapons at the ready.

“Show yourself!” Loki demands harshly, green light flicker fast against his fingertips. “We know you’re here, magician!” Beside him, Thor spins his hammer in his palm, prepared to deal damage.

Well, two can play at this game.

Darcy looks down. Every part of her that she can see is swirled with black lace. Even, she suspects, the whites of her eyes. Her clothing is gone, replaced with the dress she wore to sing awake the green-man. It is warm and soft but tattered around the edges, rotting away at the shoulders. Her legs and feet are bare beneath, flashes of pallid skin bruised black with Hel’s grace and power. Inside it is as if a blizzard is blowing hard against Darcy’s heart.

 _Let him see you, daughter_ , Hel whispers in her mind, velvet-clad arms embracing Darcy in a loving embrace. _Let the Friggason know what happens when he damages our… your… the wrong heart. Let me guide you; aid you. Let me make him weep as you have wept. Let him lose the hope you never realized you clung to._

The dream pulses around her and there - just there - Darcy sees the thin spot, between dreams and reality. She places her palm against the hole and _rips_ , stepping through with a spin like a pirouette, all deadly grace and speed.

Thor’s ready stance falters as Darcy’s shade reveals herself. “Darcy?”

Loki goes whiter than she’s ever seen him before, then his skin flickers blue. He swallows convulsively. “No.”

It is not a rebuttal. It is a prayer.

Hel’s fingers brush the back of Dary’s hair, soothing her, comforting her. _Melding_ with her.

Darcy smiles, a slow sibilant thing, and tilts her head as far as it will go toward her shoulder, looking through her long lashes at Loki. She blinks twice, slowly, and then begins to laugh.

This is Hel at work, Darcy knows, but it is so _freeing_ to give up control, to hand over the reins, to be not-Darcy, not-pathetic, not-alone just once, just once in her life. To be hard and alien and beautiful and _powerful_ , just once.

“Hello, Friggason,” Hel/Darcy said and her voice is low, and rough, and cold, cracking ice splintering on a deeply frozen lake. “Been busy, have we?”

Loki swallows convulsively, his pupils mere pinpricks, and the whites of his eyes drowning the rest.

“Darcy, no,” Thor says again, protesting… what? Her existence? The fact that she was there, confronting them? That she hadn’t gone quietly into the good night? That she would allow herself to be forgotten no longer? “Shield-sister… what has happened?”

Hel/Darcy chuckles again, gliding a few steps backward toward the couches, running one hand along the back edge before she reaches the wall. Here there are potted plants.

One finger lifts up, brushes the closest plant, and within moments it is shriveled and dead.

“I was abandoned, Odinson,” the low, icy voice slips between her lips, soft and sweet as silk, but Thor flinches when it speaks his name. “Left alone in the forest, in the cottage, in the snow-drifted fields. Left to rot, like a dead thing. Abandoned to my fears and confusion. To the realization that all I thought was truth was a lie. That love,” here she flicks a look at Loki, “is a lie.”

“You weren’t abandoned, Darcy,” Thor protests, setting aside his hammer, hands outstretched beseachingly. “You were set there for safekeeping! Away from-” he hesitates, glances abruptly at Loki, and seems to change the course of what he was going to say, “- away from this mess.”

“Safekeeping? In Blackwood Cottage?” Darcy laughs bitterly. “Not much safety there, now was there?”

Now it is Loki’s turn to flinch. “Blackwood… Cottage…?” he hisses sharply. “Daniel Blackwood’s cottage?”

Hel/Darcy smiles brightly. “Head of the class there, aren’t you, Friggason? How do you think Darcy felt the night she called out to you? Twice she called, begging you to come rescue her. And as the chants rippled around the room do you think she felt the cold as it sank into her very bones? Or do you think she embraced it? To sleep. To dream.” Her voice goes hard and sharp. “To _die_.”

Another plant withered and died, black within seconds. Then another. And another.

“Old magic, Friggason, at the crossroads,” Hel/Darcy taunts them, slipping backward in a series of elegant dancing steps, just out of a lunging reach. Distantly she can hear the elevator doors slip open, can see out the corner of her eyes four people step out but she ignores them. They are not the one who betrayed and abandoned Darcy to the dark. They are nothing. “Old magic and older gods. Hungry gods, Friggason. Ravenous.”

Thor chokes and Loki sways on his feet at the admission. He raises one hand, fingers clutching. “Darcy-“

“Who the hell-“ one of the newcomers says and Darcy lashes out towards them, sending a bolt of black their way. A vase near the elevator explodes, raining them with shards and the two men move to cover the two women. One is Wanda, Darcy notes clinically from inside the numb safety of Hel’s shell, and the other is Jane.

“Stay there!” Hel/Darcy demands. “No further!”

“Darcy?” Jane chokes out, stunned and white-faced. She struggles out from beneath the winged man, hand out as if to touch her. “Darcy?!”

“Darcy is DEAD,” snarls Hel/Darcy, spitting at Jane’s feet. “Or as good as. No thanks to you and yours.” She turns and sees that Thor and Loki have moved to flank her. “Oh, no, Odinson, Friggason,” she croons, “those tactics won’t work here. You truly think I’d be stupid enough to bring the mortal shell all this way where you could lay hands on her again, coax her back to light and life and love? No. By time you reach the cottage Darcy’s body will be well away. She is mine now. You can’t have her back.”

She straightens, looks Loki straight in the eye, and says, “Her death was _your_ fault.”

Hel moves to return to the rent between dreams and reality when a scarlet field snaps into place around her. Hel reaches out one black-lace hand and runs a claw lightly across the bubble, testing the strength of the magic. It quivers but does not burst.

“What’s going on?! Why is Darcy… why’s she dressed like that? Why’s she saying that?! What’s going ON?!” demands Jane distantly as Hel turns to regard the other woman, _Wanda_ , who holds her hands out as if grasping a ball and meets her eyes.

“You are going nowhere,” Wanda says and her voice is accented strangely.

“Oh child,” Hel laughs, “you might be powerful enough one day to hold me. One day. But that day is not today.” Hel rakes her claws hard against the red bubble and it pops audibly. Off to the left a hidden door bursts open as other Avengers – Widow and Hawkeye and the Captain – stumble through, weapons at the ready.

“I’ll tell you this, though,” she tells Wanda, glorifying in the way the woman’s face has paled, the confusion writ across her pretty features. “Pietro doesn’t dream sweetly where he rests. Wanda, little Wanda. Where your brother is,” Hel gathers herself, flicks a glance at Loki, and then snarls at the girl, “he _screams_.”

Wanda’s eyes fly wide, furious, and just as fresh power surges within her Hel twists through the rent in reality and is gone.

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

Darcy gasps awake again, coughing roughly, choking for air. The cottage is filled with smoke, thick and oily and she realizes dumbly that while she slept, insensible and dreaming of Hel taunting the Avengers wearing Darcy like a mask, the walls have somehow caught ablaze. How she herself hasn’t been burned, Darcy has no clue, but she pulls away from the flames and crawls as rapidly as she can to the front door only to find it blocked by the mounds of snow.

“No!” Darcy gasps, choking. “NO!” She pounds feebly for a moment against the door before giving up. Was this what Hel meant when she said it wasn’t Darcy’s time? Had she been saving Darcy only to let her burn to death?

No, that didn’t feel right. In fact, Hel within seems to be of two minds. She could bring Darcy into her embrace right now, fold her into the chill calm of death before the flames lick at her flesh and save Darcy the agony of an excruciating end… or she could remind Darcy of the basement room below and the stone carved in the far wall followed by a fractured memory of Fionnula urging Darcy to visit the bog. Hel’s velvet voice urges Darcy to use the tunnel beneath the cottage that lets out in the woods nearby.

Coughing, inwardly blessing Hel’s miniscule mercy and Fionnula’s consideration, Darcy drags herself through the flaming living room, dodging blazing debris as best she can, and she makes it nearly to the kitchen before slicing her leg on a fire-blasted piece of collapsed ceiling. Blood wells up and Darcy grabs the tea towel off the counter. Loki had dried his mug with the towel last and even through the smoke and haze she can smell his lingering leather and chill on the fabric as Darcy presses the towel hard against her calf, staunching the flow.

There is an ominous creak above her and Darcy drops the towel beneath the table and continues on, dragging herself through the master bedroom and through the panel, down into the basement. The stone is cool and welcoming, the magic sliding open without a whisper or thought. This is her place now, Darcy’s salvation, and it welcomes her. There is a loud _whooomph_ above her as another part of the cottage caves in but Darcy, bleeding heavily still, limps through the blackened chamber, blood dripping across the sigils carved in the floor, leaving bloody handprints on the walls, as she drags herself all the way back.

 _There_ , Hel says inside her, velvet arms clutching Darcy close. _Ignore the pain, daughter, we are almost free of this place. Press there._

A small section of wall slides aside and Darcy is able to wiggle her way through and into the close confines of a tunnel so small she has to crawl on hands and knees, wiggling on her belly in some places, shredding the thin leggings to nothing on the gravel floor of the narrow channel. Behind her there is grinding and the wall slides shut, leaving her in utter and complete darkness, the stench of rot and death filling her nose, clarifying her world.

The before-Darcy, the frightened-Darcy, the abused-Darcy would have begun to panic in this moment. But the now-Darcy, the angry-Darcy, the pain-filled-Darcy, relishes the darkness as a friend. Hel within smiles and settles, guiding her deeper within the earth.

Darcy, breath rattling in her lungs, calm and steady, crawls on and out toward freedom.

 

 

 

“Loki. LOKI!”

Time passes and Darcy dreams again. She doesn’t remember much past slipping into the bog, the frigid water a balm against her fire-blistered skin and fever-flushed frame, but she does recall a tall frame, dark hair and amber eyes, work-calloused hands lifting her out of the muck. Gentle fingers stripping her, cleaning her, washing and brushing her hair, lying her down and stroking her fevered forehead, binding her broken flesh. Greenery growing, roses curling, vines slipping across her body, burying her in verdant, lush life.

Then… another dream. A vision.

Walking between the branches of the world tree.

When Darcy opens her eyes she is sitting on the floor of a jet, legs crossed and hands resting on her knees, palms up. Hel is barely there, a whisper so faint as to be nonexistent and Darcy feels the absence of the Death goddess like an open wound, like something is missing inside her, and yet, she feels purged and light at the same time.

Happy for once, a massive weight lifted, as she never thought she’d be again.

Knees almost touching hers, Doctor Banner sits and breathes slowly. She can see his life force circling his body in a slow, even circuit and in the center of him, right in the heart of Bruce Banner, there is a dim green glow. The Hulk, she assumes, dozing for now.

If Hel were stronger here, Darcy knows, the goddess would reach in and tear the Hulk out. Crush the beast between her fingers to show the others her power.

Instead Darcy pushes away, rises to her feet. The Avengers have fully assembled, apparently, and so have a few others Darcy has never met. A thin man dressed in head-to-toe red and blue, black lines like webs crossing his torso and head snores softly. To his right the woman, Wanda, thumbs through her phone and, to her right, waits the man with the wings, although they are not currently strapped on. Further on the Captain is holding quiet conference with a man holding a strange silver helmet in his palms, rocking it back and forth nervously across his knees, and the silver-armed man from before, both listening intently to whatever he is saying.

Loki and Thor are across the aisle from them. Both men are still yet neither is relaxed. Darcy cranes her neck and can see Hawkeye and Widow in the cockpit, Iron Man sans his suit standing behind Widow and peering through the windshield. A black man, older and grayer, is slung across the remaining seats, snoring softly. A silver Iron Man suit sprawls next to him, head tilted back as if the suit, too, slumbers.

“What the hell, Clint, did the forecast call for a blizzard with a side of snow?” Tony complains and Darcy is glad that their brush together did no lasting harm.

“Has it been snowing thusly for long?” Thor asks, voice carrying. The dozing members of the group shift and grumble but do not wake. Wanda looks up from her phone.

“According to the records, it’s been snowing like this for a week, basically ever since we left,” Widow says a moment later, voice tight, low and considering. “If that’s the case… we might not even be able to find the cottage, guys. It’s out in the middle of nowhere as it is and if nowhere is covered under fifteen feet of snow…”

She lets the thought trail off.

“We might not even be able to park this thing,” Hawkeye finishes.

“‘Leave Vision at home,’ they said,” Tony grumbles loudly. “‘We don’t need another flyer,’ they said. Not like this sort of crap bothers him or anything. Not like he can’t just phase through until he finds the house.”

“We don’t,” the Captain calls, pausing his conversation long enough to shoot Tony a derisive look. “And someone had to stay and hold down the fort, Tony. Unless you wanted us to borrow the Warriors Three again? Remember the last time they stayed over to watch New York for us? Is it already time to redecorate?”

Wanda snorts, an unladylike noise, and despite herself Darcy smiles. Without Hel’s whispering, her confused fury pressing against the back of Darcy’s brain, Darcy can find it in herself to find nice things about the young woman. Her eyes are lovely, her skin clear, and her hair is long and waving and untangled, unlike the matted, silver-streaked mess Darcy has been sporting lately. Wanda is exquisitely beautiful, eyes bright and intelligent, and obviously powerful.

No wonder Loki favors her.

Darcy blinks hard a few times, forcing down the lump in her throat, and shudders a sigh. Well, if Loki had to dump her, at least she got dumped for a quality lady. She didn’t get thrown over for some schmuck.

“Uh, guys?” Hawkeye is leaning forward now, shoulders hunched. “Am I the only one who’s seeing this?”

“Wow, that is just so much smoke. Is that a fire?” the helmet-holding man asks loudly and the sleeping Avengers jerk awake, moving and shifting, and rubbing their eyes.

“Did someone say fire?” the red-and-blue clad hero asks and his voice is pitched high and thin. He’s young, Darcy realizes, and wonders what in the hell the Avengers are doing, dragging a young boy across the world on whatever mission they’ve embarked on.

“It’s Darcy’s cottage,” Widow grates out, flipping switches. Beside her, Hawkeye is taut as a wire, eyes rapidly flicking left and right, taking in the scene. “Everyone hold on!”

Loki’s fingers clench the seat he’s on hard enough to dent the metal and Darcy wishes she could reach out and touch him, soothe him just once. Inside her she can feel for the first time in months the little fluttering of her sapphire magic seeking out his in sympathy. She cages it, holds it close. The magic is hers now, hers and hers alone.

The plane sinks into the snow beside the cottage with a large groan and Loki is up and out the door the second the ramp in the back begins to descend, Thor at his back, calling, “Loki! Loki, hold but a moment!”

The cottage is mostly out by now, stones soot blackened and crumbling. All around the edges of the house up to a good thirty feet out the flames have melted the snow to slush. “It’s too hot to go in!” one of the heroes yells as Loki paces the perimeter of the cottage. “Loki, you’ll be burned!”

“I don’t care!” Loki snarls back and is about to go for the front door, Thor moving to intercept, when a large red bubble encases the entire cottage.

“Wait,” says Wanda shortly. “Patience, Loki.”

Thor has a hand on Loki’s chest, fingers splayed against the armor, but he sags in relief.

Darcy watches, impressed, as Wanda does… something… to the cottage and then lifts up the bubble straight into the air before moving it into a nearby snow bank. The snow around the bubble immediately bursts into steam but Darcy can see that the cottage is no longer smoking. It is now still and cold and rimed in frost as if the flames had been dead for days.

“Darcy!” Loki shouts, shoving past Thor and darting into the ruins. “DARCY!”

The Captain takes a moment, directing the man with the wings and the silver-suited black man up into the air to scan the surrounding area, and sending Hawkeye and the man with the silver arm out into the surrounding woods. The doctor is instructed to remain on the plane, only to be called out if they need a “Code Green” or, as the Captain pitches his voice low enough for Loki to not hear it, emergency medical care.

Those remaining spread out, pushing through the small cottage. Most of it has been destroyed, but the kitchen table, that heavy old thing, is still somewhat intact, albeit blistered beyond recognition and heavily scorched down one leg.

The boy in red and blue spots it first. “Hey! Hey guys! I found something!” He squats down, remarkably flexible, and snags the tea towel from beneath the table, pinching it between his forefinger and thumb. “It’s all dried and stuff, but I think that’s blood.”

Loki growls, actually growls, and Iron Man steps up. “Give it to me, Friday. What are we looking at?”

There is a brief pause and then an accented female voice says, “90% match for Darcy Lewis, boss. Heat damage accounting for the uncertain 10%.”

Stark muffles a curse and hands off the tea towel to Widow. She makes it vanish, likely into one of her pockets, and they continue combing the cottage.

“I’m not seeing any bones… or… uh, teeth…” says the young boy. Loki growls again and he holds up both hands. “Dude, chill out. Human teeth don’t burn. Unless we find her huddled in a closet or something, if there’s no bones or teeth then she’s probably not even in here.”

“Underoos has a point, Reindeer Games,” Tony says. “Friday, scan for bones, teeth, calcium deposits, anything that can-“

“Beneath you, boss,” FRIDAY interrupts. “A varied number of human remains.” If it is possible for the primly accented AI to sound disturbed, then FRIDAY sounds absolutely disgusted.

“Beneath me?” Tony asks, brow furrowing.

“A basement,” the Captain guesses correctly, narrow-eyed. “Was there a basement on the blueprints?”

“No.” Natasha’s voice is sharp and low and if Darcy didn’t know better, furious. “This safe house had zero subterranean access that we knew of.”

“Uh, guys?” The helmeted man picks his way around the corner and waves to get their attention. He is standing in the remains of what was once the master bedroom. “Did this rental come with a freaky black magic-looking chamber in the brochure? Because if not, maybe someone should get their money back.”

Darcy follows them as they clatter down the stairs, Loki, Wanda, and Thor pausing to gauge the etching in the stone hewn walls. When they step into the chamber beneath Wanda hitches in a sharp breath, tears standing out in her eyes, and Loki groans, falling to his knees, pressing one long-fingered hand to the stone floor.

“Can you feel that?” Wanda whispers.

“Death,” Loki replies, hunching down in over himself, the palm of his other hand gingerly splaying across the circle in the floor. “This is a place of death magic.”

“It’s old,” Wanda says, voice shaking hard. “And thick. So… so many people have _died_ here.” She begins to cry a little and Darcy is a little jealous of how, even when weeping, Wanda is beautiful.

“Was Darcy…” the Captain hesitates, clears his throat, and then begins again. He is turning slowly, taking in the room, a deep furrow between his brows. “Was Darcy… was Darcy… here? Down here? Sacrificed here?”

Before anyone can answer Thor roars, lifting his hammer and stretching back to swing at the closest when the Widow barks, “THOR! NO!”

     Stopping a mere inch away from the wall, Thor pauses in confusion. Natasha points a long, pale finger at the stone beneath their feet and then to a clear handprint, Darcy’s handprint, lined in blood and half smeared on the wall.

     “That blood is fresh. Relatively fresh.”

     Loki is up in an instant, Thor at his side, as Stark’s suit scans the droplets on the floor and the wall.

     “FRIDAY? Don’t keep us waiting,” he barks.

     “100% match for Darcy Lewis, Boss,” the AI confirms.

     “It’s barely dried,” Wanda notes, voice struggling for an even tone. She looks green and woozy, needs the Captain to help hold her up. “So there’s a chance.”

     “But how in the hell did she get out? Did she go through the front door? She couldn’t have, right? The snow outside the fire’s radius is way high, it would’ve kept her trapped in here.” The boy in red and blue is tapping his chin, pacing in small circles. “And if the tea towel is any indication, she was bleeding heavily, but there wasn’t any blood near the front door or in the snow…”

     “There must be another way out,” Natasha says, kneeling down and running her index finger through a drop of blood on the floor. She lifts it to her nose, sniffs once, and then rubs her finger and thumb together until Darcy’s blood flakes away. She tilts her head, examining the drip patterns.

     “Back wall,” the strangely-helmeted man says, suddenly appearing by said wall as if bursting into being. Darcy, surprised, jerks with a little gasp. It takes a moment to realize that he hasn’t vanished and reappeared, merely grown very suddenly from a very small shape.

     Huh, wouldya lookat that? Helmet dude can make himself tiny. Would wonders never cease?

     “Can you open it?” the Captain asks him and the helmeted man shrugs. “I don’t think so? But I can crawl between the cracks. Fair warning though, that tunnel is eensy. None of us can fit through there as we are…” he hesitates, glancing at the boy, “well, almost none of us. Rubberboy can fit it, I’d guess.”

     “Spiderman,” the kid replies and Darcy gets the sense that if he could, he’d stick his tongue out and blow a raspberry at the older man.

     “New plan,” the Captain says, ignoring their static. “Thor, bust the back wall out, open up the tunnel. Ant-man, you and Spiderman go through. Hopefully she didn’t pass out in there. The rest of us will circle around. You let us know wherever you come out, we’ll go over and meet you.”

     Thor nods and, once the stone has been pointed out, busts it up with one tap, allowing the others to peer into the narrow space Darcy had shimmied through earlier.

     The boy leans forward sniffing at the hole. “Oh my god, that is _rank_! That is just nasty, all rot and… dude, who friggin died in there?!”

     Hissing between his teeth, Ant-man slaps Spiderman on the shoulder and jerks his head toward Loki. The kid flinches hard. “Not that anyone’s dead!” he stutters, holding up his hands palms out, as if expecting a blow. “Nah, just a nasty smell, no biggie, right?”

     “She is not dead,” Loki grates out between clenched teeth. “I’d sense it if she were.” His thumb rubs against the scar on his ring finger, probing.

     There is a long moment where no one says a word, all of them avoiding Loki’s burning eyes save for Thor, whose discomfort is tempered by pity and love for his brother.

     “Man, I gotta get one of those filtration systems, Mr. Stark,” Spiderman mutters but squats down and begins shifting around to crawl into the tunnel. “How the hell did she even squeeze in here? Was she a tiny lady or something? How does someone this small even end up with a tall dude like Loki anyway? Talk about a crick in the neck, am I right?”

     “Man,” Ant-man says, hand at his waist, “shut up, will you?” He _twists_ , and vanishes again, and Darcy can’t help but smile. Despite herself she likes these new Avengers. Hel might eventually end up using her body to rip them end from end, but with any luck some of them will survive.

     The group splits up, each of them moving to follow the Captain’s orders but one.

     Loki.

     He stands in the middle of the death spiral carved in the floor, staring down, hands fisted at his sides.

     Thor, at the top of the stairs, turns and descends again. “Loki, if we’re to find her before next snowfall, we must move quickly.”

     Loki looks up, nods once, and moves to follow his brother. He’d been alone, or alone enough. Only Darcy saw the tears gathered in his eyes. Only Darcy knew the fresh wetness on the floor is neither snow nor blood but the salt of Loki’s tears. This makes her uneasy, uncertain. Why weep, if he’s already moved on? Is Loki actually concerned about her?

     Thor had gotten only a step up the staircase when he paused, frowning. “Loki? Your hands are smaller, brother. Can you… can you reach that there?” He waves at the stairs and Loki moves to squat gracefully down, hand slipping between the warped wood where Thor indicated.

     He pulls back, gripping Darcy’s ring in his hand. It is dulled and damaged by heat, battered and scratched nearly beyond recognition. The once gleaming gold is nearly gray, covered in a fine coat of ash.

     “Is that-“ Thor doesn’t finish the question but Loki is nothing if not astute.

     “Yes,” he replies shortly, fingers curling over the ring. “It is hers. Mother gave us… we shared… it was a link, a way to connect.”

     Thor raggedly inhales. “We’ll find her, brother.”

     Loki nods once. “Of course we will.”

     Together they ascend the stairs, heading out of darkness and toward the light.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

 

     It takes Spiderman and Ant-man a surprisingly long time to wind their way through the tunnel and into the bog. Darcy wonders if it took her as long or longer. How many hours had the fire been blazing? And how did she escape the bog anyway? A dim memory of black hair and amber eyes, warm, strong hands lifting her up, cleaning her, the scent of growing things and rich, black loam rises and falls like a tide, vanishing beneath the swell of memory.

     When the call and coordinates come, the others pick their way through the bog and marsh, to find the pair of them standing in the carr, gesturing over the only dry patch of land within sight.

     “More blood, Mr. Stark,” Spiderman says as they approach, eying the blood-splattered dry grass with distaste. “She was definitely here.”

     “All this water is gonna be a bitch to track her through,” the man with the silver arm says, speaking for the first time that Darcy can remember. His voice is low and clipped and there’s a faint accent there, somewhere between Brooklyn and something else entirely, pressed between his constantans, hidden behind his vowels.

     “But you can do it, right Bucky?” the Captain asks, smiling briefly, the skin pulled taut at the corners of his eyes.

     Running one hand through his hair, Bucky considers and his lips twist, corners tucked down. “Maybe.” He glances between Loki and Wanda. “A little help would be nice.”

     Nodding, Wanda raises a hand.

     Nothing happens.

     Frowning, she raises it again.

     More nothing.

     Both hands come up now, an intent look rippling across her features. She grunts, then gasps, then sags. The Captain is at her side in an instant, supporting her, curling her into his arms, bridal-style.

     “Loki?” Thor asks, holding out his hammer, concern etched across his mouth, warping his sunny smile into something hard and wrong.

     “It’s an eddie,” Loki explains, one hand out, fingers splayed wide and pale as a ghost. “No worked magic can thrive here. Only… only nature magic. Trying to work other magic… hurts.”

     “What’s that supposed to mean?” Stark demands. “Isn’t magic, you know, magic? Just science we don’t get? It’s all just the same stuff, right?”

     Wanda snorts inelegantly again but she is weak and drained and can barely manage the energy for derision and disgust. “No, Stark. Magic is not magic is not magic. Loki’s magic is different than my magic. My magic differs from Dr. Strange’s. They all come from similar sources… but none are exactly the same. And no one we know works nature magic. It’s too…”

     “Volatile,” Loki finishes. “It takes immense control to work nature magic. Easy to learn, near impossible to bend to your will without outside aid.”

     “Outside aid?” the Captain asks.

     “But what does it _mean_?” Tony presses.

     “It means we can’t help track her, it has to be done the old-fashioned way!” Wanda snaps. She sags further. “Just being in this place, breathing this air, is draining me.”

     “No kidding,” Spiderman whimpers, holding his head. “The smell out here… ugh, even through the mask it’s overwhelming. The tunnel was awful but this…” The boy jerks once, makes a hurking noise, twists and gets his mask up barely in time to vomit into the bog at his feet. It splashes noisily and Darcy is sure that if her gut were her own right now, it would be twisting in sympathy.

     “Widow and I’ll get our magicians out of the danger zone,” the Captain decides. “Bucky, Stark, Thor, Ant-man, you keep looking. Widow, once we’re back I need to you to get on comms and send our flyers out this way. Check with Banner and get Hawkeye back to base. We didn’t exactly land in a secure location. I don’t like the quinjet being so exposed.”

     “I’m staying,” Loki declares.

     “Don’t be an idiot, Reindeer Games,” Stark snaps. “You need aid, or whatever. We need you in tip top shape to take down whatever death-bitch has Darcy, _capisce_? You’re doing your girlfriend zero favors trying to stick it out.”

     “She said it was my fault.” Loki’s voice is low and bleak, a bare step above broken. “Darcy… at the Tower. She said her death was my fault. I can’t… I can’t let her be alone out here. Not again. She’s… she’s spent too much of her life alone.”

His shoulders hitch for a moment and Thor moves to put a hand on them. Darcy expect proud Loki to shrug his brother away but instead he surprises her, allowing Thor to pull him in tight, to wrap him in his massive arms and hug him until the metal armor fairly groans from it.

“Darcy will understand, Loki. We shall explain. And when we find her-“ Thor stutters to a stop, suddenly on edge and bellowing. “You! Who goes there?! Speak quick your name or know the might of Thor!”

Darcy turns and is unsurprised to see Fionnula picking her way across the marsh, a bundle of fresh picked herbs peeking out of the willow basket hung over her wrist, the hem of her skirt rucked up and tucked around her waist.

“Bit imperious for being up to yer arse in bog water, aren’t ya?” Fionnula glances at the Captain and the Widow, dismisses them, though her eyes linger on Wanda clasped to the Captain’s chest for a beat before she continues, “Your boy looks a wee bit green about the gills now. It might be best if the lot of you was off now. There’s nothing here in this bog for the likes of you and the snow’s coming anew.” She tilts her head back, tasting the air. “This one’s going to be a corker!”

Wanda, ashen-faced but bright-eyed, raises one slim hand and points at Fionnula, fingers shaking. “You have magic here. Nature magic! How?”

Fionnula’s grin is a flash of white and gold, there and gone, and when her eyes skim again over the motley assortment of heroes Darcy swears that they linger on her hanging at the edges for a long moment before replying to the witch.

“This place is near a crossroads, luv, and I was born barely a breath away from this very fen. Surely your magical education has taught you about the crossroads? The places of old worship and magic?”

Wanda flushes angrily and it dawns abruptly on Darcy that this witch she had been craving to maim earlier, this wild woman with magic burning scarlet, the one Hel had watched with a jaded and jealous eye, was little more than a child herself. Nineteen, perhaps? Barely more.

And Loki had barely glanced at Wanda this entire time.

Had Hel been mistaken? Or had it been Darcy? Was Loki courting Wanda or had Darcy plucked a misconception out of the air and donned it like a shroud to protect her fragile heart, excuse her leaping into Hel’s embrace out of fear of further rejection? Her head throbbed and Darcy chewed her lower lip uneasily.

Had she, yet again, been an utter idiot?

“Mild there, lass, it’s no fault of your own,” Fionnula soothes Wanda, waving an idle hand at the bog around them. “The likes of me, I was born to magic. Sucked it from the teat with my mother’s milk. And unlike that girl in the cottage, my goddess has been kind to me. Taught me the weft and ways, you see, rather than throwing me in the muck of magic to sink or swim on my own.”

They all stiffened at the oblique mention to Darcy and Darcy, bemused crossed her arms beneath her bust. What was Fionnula playing at?

“You knew Dar- the girl in the cottage? Speak woman! When did last you meet?” Thor demands, a low, fast rumble like thunder in the distance.

“Darcy? Yes, I know her,” Fionnula said, raising an eyebrow and slowly perusing Thor. She’s utterly unimpressed with his grumbling and demands. “What’s it to you?”

“We’re her friends-“ Stark begins, cut short by Fionnula’s harsh bark of laughter.

“Oh you’re the friends now? You? Friends?! If that is the kind of friendship the likes of you lot offer, then perhaps I best be on my way. I’d loathe to see how you treat your enemies.”

“Hey!” Stark protested. “Darcy was taken care of-“

“Aye!” Fionnula snapped, straightening and glaring around at them, fairly vibrating with fury. “By me! And mine. We watched over the lass, fever bright and dying, sleepwalking through the woods. Lost the babe she did, barely into her seclusion, and midwife though I may have been, even I can’t do much without a hospital and the closest town over an hour away!”

 _Babe? Oh Fionnula, what are you doing_? Darcy bemoaned.

Loki’s expression was like stone. They glanced at him, then back at Fionnula. Thor’s hammed dropped to his side. He swallowed convulsively. Loki remained statue-still and silent.

“Darcy… was with child?” Thor queries, voice quavering. “You are certain we speak of the same maid?”

The old woman sighed once, deeply, and set her basket on the tiny hill beside the dried puddle of Darcy’s blood, rubbing one hand across her forehead as if easing an ache there. “The girl staying at the Blackwood Cottage, yes. Dark hair, tiny thing. Sweet and funny, when you can cut her out of the cold. Sharp-witted.”

Loki’s voice is a rasp. “What happened?”

Fionnula shrugs, wraps her arms around her waist and rocks herself gently, as if needing the comfort. “Darcy caught ill nearly the moment she came here. I thought it at first simple homesickness, just a bit of depression that she’d work her way out of, but I’ve been birthing bairns since I was barely older than a babe myself. She was ice the first time I met her, didn’t even remember meeting me the first half-dozen times we spoke, I had to introduce myself over and over again. The second time we crossed paths I found her in the woods, crumpled beneath the bottle tree. Sleepwalking. She does it most nights, wandering over hill and dale in that thin thing like paper, barefoot and enraptured by the stars. We valley folk keep an eye out for her when we can, unlike the likes of you.”

“You have our thanks for watching over Darcy so.” Thor nods his gratitude and Fionnula frowns, scowling at the big man a moment before continuing.

“Brigid whispered to me and I knew Darcy’s predicament for what it was straight away. The next day I brought her tea to soothe her and I realized then that the lass was so deep into her depression that she hadn’t even noticed how gone she was. I don’t judge, mind you. She’d not be the first to get in a family way and be sent to the ass-end of nowhere to birth a bastard.”

Thor growls beneath his breath but Fionnula pays him no mind. Loki is still silent as stone, but his burning eyes never leave Fionnula’s face. His lips are pressed thin and white, a bloodless slash in his face, skin flickering blue and back again.

“When next I visited, Darcy lay still as stone in the back garden, blue from the cold. I took her inside but she passed the child soon after, lost to dreams and fever and… well. Lost. Like a ghost that didn’t realize it still lived. I visited when I could, sent my boy Bran when I couldn’t. Cleaned her, bathed her, helped her through her haze. Prepared to help her get over the loss of the bairn but… nothing. Though now, seeing your surprise, I’m wondering if she knew herself. It was early days yet.”

Darcy frowned. Wait… that didn’t sound right… yet… her hand drifted to her middle and she thought of the blue-black of the blood beading up over her thin skin. How she’d slept and slept, vomiting thin bile, the cramping and pain, the sorrow overwhelming her and the incessant, unrelenting feeling of something _off_ , something _wrong_. The cold seeping through her veins, her frozen magic, and the black tug of Hel’s magic.

 _A sacrifice was needed_ , Hel whispered within her. _One innocent soul for another_. For a moment Darcy is furious and then she remembers the cold look on Loki’s face before he’d left, how he’d answered no questions, the gold chain about his neck. How he hadn’t even said goodbye.

 _Did you destroy… them_? Darcy asks inwardly and feels Hel shift. If Darcy didn’t know better, she’d think the death goddess was uneasy with the question. _Or take them down into the dark with you_?

 _That is not how it is done. The soul was returned to the soul cauldron. It shall be born again someday_.

“I made a mix for forgetting,” Fionnula continues, tilting her head back and looking up at the sky, gauging it. “A draught to let her sleep away her pain.” She sighed and wiped a palm across her face. “That lass has so much pain, she barely moves but it weighs her down so. I visited as often as I could and in her fever, in the month that she slept and drifted, we visited and she told me… so much. Too much.” Her fingers curl into loose fists. “I know why she was called so, called here. Such pain… the rest was a mercy.”

“Fionnula!” calls a voice and they all startled. “Fionnula!” Darcy doesn’t know how she knows this but one of the men from the solstice circle is slogging his way across the fen, arms held out. His hair is like gold in the dim sunlight, and his smile is bright and cheerful. He approaches, panting heavily. “I’ve been searching hill and dale, woman! Are you well?”

“Wicked lad, I’ve barely begun my wandering,” Fionnula chides him. “What is so dire it couldn’t wait?”

“Darcy’s cottage was aflame!” the man says. “It’s out now but the cottage is ruined.”

“And Darcy? Has she been taken to St. Brigit’s then?” Fionnula demanded, flicking a glance over the assorted Avengers, frowning hard.

“No. No one’s seen the lass since you last visited her last week.”

Darcy frowned. Had it been a week? Hadn’t Fionnula been to the cottage just yesterday? But Darcy’d been with Hel, hadn’t she? Caught in Hel’s embrace… and days slid like hours when you walked with the goddess of Death, didn’t they? Darcy’d already lost five years of her life down in the black, bringing Loki back. Her palm presses briefly against the non-existent slope of her belly.

What the hell was going on?

“Stuff and nonsense!” Fionnula declares, raising an eyebrow imperiously. “There’s no ways in this entire valley that we don’t know. No bolthole you can’t suss out. Search yourself, lad. Find her.”

The man glances around, swallows hard. “N-now? But I’ve barely-”

“Child might be injured or worse and you’d question it?” Fionnula demands, slapping him lightly on the shoulder. “Stop, lad, and breathe. Deep. Stretch out. Ask your god for help. Trust in his reply.”

Wanda and Loki both jerk at her words but neither says a thing, sharing only one long, wide-eyed look.

The man’s hand twitches convulsively, his shoulders hunch up as he looks about, taking in the Avengers and the fen, straying to the basket on the hill beside the blood. “You’ve visitors, Fionnula. Nodens may not wish to answer.”

She tsks. “Then he’s naught but a pot of rot. Ask!”

Thor sucks in a deep breath as the man nods once, inhales heavily, and his eyes roll back in his head. His palm stretches out, searching, fingers gripping at the air as he turns in a slow rotation and when he speaks his voice is low and deep, much deeper than before.

“Hunter,” the man says, voice resonant and low - far from the lilting tenor of the man who’d helped Darcy and Fionnula sing back the sun - then tilts his head, regarding Bucky. The silver-armed man doesn’t flinch but the whites of his eyes grow wide. “One of mine.”

The Captain shifts, makes to say something, but is stopped when Thor thrusts a hand against his arm, shaking his head. Wanda leans over, whispers something fast and low in his ear and the Captain subsides with ill grace, frowning fiercely.

“We’re seeking the maid Darcy Lewis,” Thor says, steady and even, never taking his eyes from the man. “We believe her to have suffered ill. Can you aid us?”

The man, no, Nodens the woodland god, the hunter reborn, chuckles deep and low. “You’d have me grant a boon, Asgardian? This is Brigid’s land, hunting here is verboten.”

“Seeking, not hunting,” Thor amends. “We believe her hurt and wish to offer comfort. Your skills would be invaluable.”

The god tilts his head and regards them steadily. “She was quite hurt indeed, wounded prey on the hillside, wandering the night. We watched over her a time or two, before the solstice, made sure she returned home. But then the black poured over the valley and claimed her. She feels no ills now. You are too late, Asgardian.”

“Does her body breathe?” Wanda whispers and beside Thor Loki makes a small choked noise. “Does her heart beat?”

Nodens throws his head back and laughs, the rich sound peeling like bells across the fen. “Little witch, you think to save a lass taken by Death herself to be one of her handmaidens, her daughters in the darkness? Are you mad or do you value your own soul so little?”

“No body, no death, it’s a rule I just made up,” Stark snaps suddenly, glaring at Nodens. “Look, Nodoze or whoever, we’re killing precious daylight here. Are you gonna help us or what?”

Nodens regards Stark bemusedly for a moment and then laughs again, a gentler sound. “Hunters walk hand in hand with Death every day, shiny tinpot man. You wish to find Death’s handmaiden? Let my hunter be your guide.” He reached forward and rested a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. The soldier flinches, all nerves and edgy energy, but stills after a moment, calm descending.

“Buck?” the Captain asked, his voice raw. He clutches Wander closer to his chest, itching to set her aside and see to his friend. “Bucky, buddy? You okay?”

“I… I can… I can smell her? Her blood. She was here.” Bucky swallows convulsively, eyes skimming Nodens with wide, frightened intensity. “Is this… is this how you see the world?”

“It’s how a god sees the world, aye,” Nodens agrees easily. “Take this gift and be well, hunter. It is yours for a year and a day and should you so wish to parlay again, return to this valley and find me. You would make a fine supplicant.” He claps his hand once more on Bucky’s shoulder and then the man Nodens inhabited thumps hard to the ground as if invisible strings have been cut.

“Bloody hell,” he gasps and coughs. “That… hurt. Ugh, my head feels like a split melon. I hate when he pushes forward like that, without the circle and the dance.”

“Tis the way of being a mouthpiece, careless of mortal ills,” Fionnula agrees easily, offering the man one arm but before he can accept Thor has swept him up off his feet in an embrace. “Such is the way of gods.”

“You have been most helpful and I give you thanks!” Thor booms. “Know that Thor of Asgard owes you a boon.”

“Right,” the man mutters, pushing futilely against the broad chest. “Let me down and we’ll call it even, eh big guy?”

“Go home now,” Fionnula orders as Thor finally eases the man back down to earth, flapping her hand northwest. “Rest and recoup. I’ll be by tomorrow with soup and barley bread.” He turns to go and her fingers snake out, gripping his elbow. “Drink the tea. Don’t dream tonight. I’ll have no more dream-walkers in the valley until this lot is sorted. Darcy was protected but there is worse than Death that prowls these hills these recent nights.”

Loki and Wanda look up sharply but the man only nods. “As you say, Fionnula.” Then he sketches half a nervous bow to the rest and sets off across the fen back the way he came, nearly running in his haste.

There is a long moment of quiet, silence so still that the world seems to be holding its breath, waiting watchfully.

Bucky clears his throat apologetically. “She was taken that way, toward the wood. But… she smells… wrong. Something’s wrong with her.”

“Like rot?” Spiderman asks. “The tunnel was bad, but it was an old smell. There was a newer one, stronger. Fresh. And awful.”

“Decomposition,” Bucky agrees. “If we find her…” he flicks a glance at Loki’s impassive face, “we might not like what there is to find.”

“That’s it, I’m out!” Ant-man declares suddenly, making grabby-hands for Wanda in the Captain’s arms. “Look, I’m taking the kid, and Wanda, and maybe Nat, and we’re going back to the plane. You all can go gallivanting off with Death’s daughter or whatever, but I’ve got a daughter of my own and I’m not stepping near anyone Mr. Hunter-god-guy is scared of.”

“You thought Nodens afraid?” Fionnula says, raising an eyebrow. “Of little Darcy?”

“Yes, he was afraid of ‘little Darcy’, didn’t you see him get all tight when he said that whole handmaiden of death thing? He even got all nervy talking about walking holding hands with Death!” Ant-man stripped off his helmet and ran one filthy hand through his hair, realizing only after he’d done so that he’s run muck and mud well through the strands. He grimaces. “Doesn’t the entire idea of death’s handmaidens creep you out, lady? No offense, Loki.”

“Death is a part of life, young man,” Fionnula declares with a sniff, derisive. “Anyone who walks with the old gods knows this. Nature is unrelenting and unapologetic. Death and life and death again, eternally entwined. You can’t have growth without it. Death needs life just as life needs death. They are forever ardent lovers, the green-man and the dark-lady, circling one another throughout the stars.” Her voice grows stronger as her ire increases. “Death is often a mercy! The old, the infirm, the wounded and maimed. The weak and weary. It is a burden lifted, a kindness, a gift. Suffering ended. Torment eased. Stillness and silence and peace. But to hear you speak of it, you’d think death was always awful!”

“The peace of the grave,” Bucky whispers, rubbing the back of his flesh hand against his lips.

“Just so,” she agrees, calming. “For some, it comes too early, yeah? But for others, too late. The green-man and the dark-lady are two halves of one whole. You can’t have one without the other.”

Widow stiffens and speaks for the first time since the cottage. “You speak as if you know this… this green-man who courts death.”

Fionnula chortles, actually chortles, then, and rubs her papery-thin hands together. “Of course I do, lovely. He’s my son.”

 


	7. Chapter 7

 

 

Darcy drifts behind them, no more mass than a thought on the wind. They’d split up almost as the Captain suggested, leaving Darcy with Fionnula, Thor, Loki, the Captain, Stark, and Bucky taking point. Initially Stark spent as much of the time as he could airborne but Fionnula fussed at him for frightening the wildlife until he settled back into the bog with ill grace, the marsh sucking at his metal boots with sloppy, wet sounds.

“We’re close,” Bucky said suddenly as they reached drier land and the thin clattering of branches against the sky stilled.

“It’s… green,” the Captain said, marveling, tension lost to his surprised pleasure. “How is it so green here? We’re in the dead of winter.” His fingers twitch and Darcy idly remembers that Steve Rogers is an artist. She guesses that Steve itches to draw this place, to sketch out the greenery, lush against the snow.

“This valley might belong to Brigid but the green-man comes and goes and does as he pleases,” Fionnula says as they approach a heavily wooded area, fresh and bright and green, with trailing ivy tangled and offset with rich purple and red roses, startlingly bright against the dreary sky. “We sang him awake at midwinter, Darcy included. He’s been wandering about ever since.”

“I feel like I just stepped into Sleeping Beauty,” Stark muses aloud, craning his neck back to fully get the measure of the tangled roses and ivy-drenched dome. “FRIDAY, are you getting this? How are these plants even alive? Is there even a path to get through here?”

“There appears to be a vein of warmer earth beneath our feet, Boss,” FRIDAY replies and Stark snorts.

“See? I knew there had to be a reason.”

“Hush now,” Fionnula says, ignoring the billionaire. “We’re guests here. Best act like it.” She reaches up and tugs one of the vines sharply. “Tell Bran I’ve brought guests.” It flutters and recedes.

“Bran?” the Captain asks sharply. “Your son? The one you said helped Darcy when you couldn’t?”

“Aye, one of them, though not of my body,” Fionnula agrees, wrapping her arms around her middle. “None of the supplicants here are blood by birth, but circumstance.”

“Supplicant.” Loki’s voice is a harsh whisper. “You are a supplicant too.”

“I’m Brigid’s, as I said,” Fionnula says steadily, not turning to look at him, eyes trained on the greenery before her. “As Tristan belongs to Nodens, and Darcy belongs to the dark lady, and Bran here is the green-man’s. Just so. Every god needs a mouthpiece, until they’re strong enough to walk the ways on their own. Soon enough. Soon enough.”

The vines before them begin twisting out of the way, slowly at first and then faster, until an arch has formed in the thick shrubbery. Thor and the Captain and Loki must duck to enter, and Bucky nearly does. Stark makes to follow in his suit, and Fionnula stops him with a hand upon his chest.

“That is an instrument of destruction and is not welcome in these walls, boyo. Take it off and I’ll fetch you Bran’s muck boots to wear in the meantime.”

“Are you kidding me?!” Stark demands. “I’ll have you know that I built this suit to protect people, Baba Yaga! And you want me to just leave the suit in the ass-end of nowhere while-“

“Stark!” the Captain snaps, then relents. “Just… we’re guests. Please. Please, Tony.”

“Fine!” Stark snarls. After a moment the suit splits apart and Stark steps out, scowling.

“There now, you see? Such a handsome face shouldn’t be hidden behind a mask,” Fionnula gushes, reaching up and squeezing Stark’s cheek. The Captain hides a smirk behind one hand but Bucky and Thor don’t bother, they are grinning openly. Loki is dismissive, eyeing the dome with narrow eyes.

“Where is she?” Thor asks and Darcy realizes that the only reason Loki hasn’t stormed the green area already is his brother’s hand clutched tightly about his wrist. Thor turns to Bucky as they turn about the courtyard, taking in a ramshackle shed and stone cottage, a larger outbuilding like a greenhouse, and the long troughs of five victory gardens messy with new growth near a thin, burbling stream along the edge of the dome. “You are certain she is here?”

Bucky shrugs. “The trail ends here,” he says, waving at the nearby steaming pool of water. Then he knelt down and picked up a piece of fabric, tattered, mud-splattered, and too thin for the harsh winter air. “This is hers, right? Looks like… was she wearing leggings in this weather? Jesus, she could’ve frozen to death.”

“Death will fully take her handmaiden in her own time and not before,” a voice cuts calmly through the air and Bran steps around the side of the greenhouse. He has a pair of clogs in one hand and a trowel in the other. Bran sets the trowel aside at the edge of the nearest garden, holds his free hand up to show he meant no ill will. “It does not do to question much the dealings of death, merely accept and be grateful for her mercy when she deigns to show it.”

Inside Darcy she feels a tiny lurch. Set next to Loki the resemblance between them is painfully striking, they were so similar as to be brothers. Elvin featured, inky-black hair brushing their shoulders, skin pale and creamy white. The only difference being Bran’s warm amber eyes and crooked smile, his threadbare, warm clothing compared to Loki’s rich and battered battle armor, and the way they measure one another.

“I’m Bran,” he says after a moment, offering his hand to Loki. Without looking, he tosses the clogs at Stark’s feet. “Your shoes.”

“Are you seeing this?” Stark whispers out the side of his mouth to Bucky. “I’m not imagining some psycho doppelganger that popped out of the woodwork?”

“It’s eerie,” Bucky agrees, just as low.

“Loki,” Loki replies after a moment, reaching out and clutching Bran’s forearm in the way of the Asgardians. “This is my brother, Thor, of Asgard. Steven Rogers. Tony Stark. And-“

“Barnes,” Bucky interjects. “I’m not big on giving out my name to people I’ve just met. Especially in the middle of nowhere.”

“Wise decision, hunter. Names have power in this place, along the ways. Come then, Loki, guests. I have tea and the coffee is fresh.” Bran turns his back on them and waves the motley assortment forward. Behind them there is a rustle and the Captain turns beside Darcy to see the vines slowly curling shut over the entryway, the light filtering through the canopy a dim, warm green. His fingers clench and the leather of his armor creaks warning.

Fionnula has vanished during the time they spoke and Darcy wonders distantly if the old woman has found where Bran has stashed her and is tending to her sleeping body. She is tempted a moment to search her out, possibly to return to her shell, but Darcy is weary and worried of the reception she’ll receive. Inwardly fretting, she follows.

“So… you’re a god?” Stark is saying as Darcy drifts into the room. Bran works fast, they already all are seated and clutch mugs of steaming coffee and tea, sipping gingerly. Loki and Bucky, however, have not touched theirs, simply set the mugs on the low, scarred trunk that acts as a coffee table and watch Bran with intense, sharp focus.

“Not a god,” Bran chuckles. “A mouthpiece. Should the green-man wish, he can speak through me. But soon he’ll have no need of me. This world… it is strange and new and changed in ways unforeseen. Soon the gods will walk among us as they once did in the time before time.”

“And Darcy?” Thor rumbles quietly, setting down his own mug. “She is now… a mouthpiece as well?”

“Darcy herself is not much here these days,” Bran said, shrugging. “Hasn’t been for months. She was being hollowed out, alone in that cottage away from light and heat and life. Necessary to be the conduit for the dark lady, I suppose. Stripped of her very sense of self, and instead filled with glorious purpose.”

Loki flinches hard and Bran purses his lips.

“You mistake me and blame yourselves. No, that is not the way of it. When the gods chooses a supplicant there is… a merging. A symbiosis. That which is hard and cruel can become softer, kinder, and that which is sweet can grow bitter. Death wanted Darcy, she’d chosen her before Darcy took her first breath. It was always Darcy’s duty to come here, to be called and claimed. Darcy is the shell, the vessel for Death but Death, in the vessel she has chosen, is not nearly so cruel. Darcy has done what was necessary. It is a right and good destiny, for Death to meld with one such as she.”

“Destiny? What the fuck is that shit? You’re saying she had no choice?” Stark’s voice is sharp, pointed and low. He sets his coffee down with a clink. “There’s always a choice. Always a way to make a different call. No need for Darcy to get… absorbed. Even if it smooths out some edges of a truly bitchy goddess.”

“Is there?” Bran chuckles darkly. “Know you the warp and weft of Destiny’s tapestry then? The damage Darcy experienced to twist her so, make her the perfect vessel for the likes of death’s eternal night and endless cold? How very nice for you, to be on such good terms with what shall be and what always was.”

“The man of iron means no ill,” Thor soothes Bran, shooting a glare at Tony. “He is unused to the ways of magic. Technology is his pantheon and science his god.”

Bran snorts at that and then takes pity on them, continuing. “As I said, Darcy’s damage makes her uniquely shaped to speak for Death, to ease Death’s transition into this realm. Death’s birth, if you will. It took me a long time to realize that even in Darcy’s case, this is gift.” He sets down his mug softly. “You treat this as a bad thing, but it is not. All the gods are choosing their supplicants. All the old ones are returning. Darcy’s dealings with Death has opened the gate, left a doorway in the ways for them to return and set this world to rights.”

“So what does that mean for Darcy, then?” Bucky asks softly. “Say these gods come and grow new bodies or whatever. She’ll… what? Be left alone? When all this is done? Hel or Death or whoever will leave her be?”

“It’s possible, yes. Likely, even. When the cycle is complete and Death walks with her own two feet, should she not take Darcy’s soul as tithe, I intend to keep her here, with me. You need not worry for your friend. She has a home in this valley, siblings in the other supplicants, and a mother in Fionnula.”

Thor straightens. “You cannot do that.”

Bran bares his teeth. “Why not? You lot’ve abandoned her here, didn’t you? Death didn’t have to work hard at all to slip between the cracks. When you’re not loved, the light seems very far away indeed. Darcy will be better off with me and mine. I’ll see to her wants and needs. I’ll keep her safe.”

“She’s loved,” Loki grates out, the first he’s spoken in awhile. He’s hunched small in the chair, hands dangling between his thighs, and he won’t look at Bran. His eyes scan the small room, searching, searching, searching.

Looking for a door, Darcy realizes. Looking for a room she might be kept in, so that he might slip off and steal her away. Waiting and watching and biding his time.

“Life loves death, sends her gifts, in trinkets and souls,” Bran says softly, voice beseeching and sad for a brief moment before hardening, growing firm and resolute. “Unjudging. Eternal. Accepting. Never allowing this love to slip or falter. Who are you to claim to love her? Are you a god? Can you keep Darcy safe from the coming storm as you kept her safe from the one that has already claimed her? You love her? Pah! Where were you when she lay bloody, burned, and dying in the fen?”

A muscle in Loki’s cheek jumps.

“That’s enough,” the Captain says sharply. “We’ve come to fetch our friend, Bran. To take her home where she’ll be _safe_. With _us_. In her _home._ With the best medical care on the planet, not in a cottage near a bog an hour away from the closest hospital. Now where is she?”

“You can never keep anyone safe from death, Steven Rogers,” Bran says, regarding the big blond man steadily. “Especially not one who’s embraced it.”

“Right. I’m done. Fuck this. Where is Darcy?” Stark demands, shooting to his feet and making the gesture to summon his suit. “We know she’s here!”

“Asleep,” Fionnula’s voice cracks through the air, chastising them, waving a hand sharply in the direction of the door. There is a loud metallic _thump_ outside, the caw of birds disturbed, then silence. Stark narrows his eyes at her but she ignores him, turning to Bran and scolding, “And she won’t heal well if you lot wake her! Sit down, the lot of you, before you give yourselves a cramp. None this nonsense,” a nod towards Stark and Loki, “will work in this place. Only the old magics work here.”

     “So you’ve said,” Loki replies smoothly, stilling Stark’s aborted comment with a gesture. “But I bet I can conjure something. If I need to.” It is a warning, Darcy knows, but Fionnula and Bran chuckle and shake their heads.

     “When she wakes, we’ll contact you and not a minute sooner,” Bran says, rising. “Now get out of my house, the lot of you. You’re no longer welcome here.”

     Darcy feels her heart thud hard against her ribs. Loki! He’s here, in the flesh, and if she wants to see him again, to touch him, she must find her body in a hurry!

     There is the barest velvet brush against her mind, soft and sweet and rousing slowly. A tug and Darcy knows which way her body is. She darts through the wall and finds herself in a small bedroom set two doors down a hidden hallway. Her body is battered and beaten and now that she stands outside herself, can see herself fully for the first time in an age, Darcy has to bite back a gasp. Her skin is so thin and fragile and white, it clings to her cheekbones like a skull. Her eyes are great hollows, bruised all around, her lips chapped and as white as her skin. There is a necklace of black lace circling her neck, ink in her skin, Hel’s claim upon her flesh. She is clean at least, though, Bran has done a good job of that and Darcy forces that thought down, deep down, to the back of her brain, pushing the image of him tenderly washing her free of blood and smoke and filth far, far away. Her skin is bandaged and clean and her hair has been washed and combed and settled into long, loose waves that rest across the pillow in a graceful sweep. She wears only a shirt that is not her own, plaid and huge on her emaciated frame, her legs bruised and bare and stretched out in a graceful curve above the coverlet.

     _This is how Sleeping Beauty might look, if her face weren’t a death’s head come to life_ , Darcy thinks. She contemplates slipping into her body for a split second, just letting the worn thing lay and falter until she was dust. To give up. To meet Death for real.

     But Loki was here, and soon he might not be. Darcy liked Bran well enough, but this was her chance to go home! Even if they didn’t want her, even if Jane was done with her, she could go back to the tower and curl in her bed and sleep and sleep and sleep until this all made sense, until the world felt right and solid again.

     Until she knew that the stars wouldn’t burn the world to ash.

     And they’d come for her. _He’d_ come for her.

     She couldn’t let them leave now!

     Darcy flings herself into her body and jerks awake with a gasp. Her thoughts are muddled, the dream like smoke between her fingers, there and gone in seconds, but somehow Darcy knows where she is, somehow she can taste the leather and musk and chill of Loki nearby. She can hear distantly movement past the hall and it takes great effort but she heaves herself up and off the bed. Her feet are tender beyond belief, wrapped in linen bandages and salve. Her throat is ice cold and itches fiercely.

     _Soon_ , Hel whispers in her mind and tugs her toward the rustling noises. _For now you may go to him._ _Soon_.

     The hall door creaks loudly at the press of her palm and those in the room still. She can feel confusion and consideration and her heart thumps hard against her ribs twice before Darcy gathers the courage to push forward.

     “Bran,” she says, head down, the edges of the dream scraping softly against her consciousness, memories and the shape of the dream fading already into wisps and fragments, already lost within the velvet black, “how did I-“

     There’s a soft gasp and Darcy looks up. She sees Thor, and how Thor’s face has twisted in horror, and Stark, and how Stark’s eyes have gone wide. She barely knew the Captain and has never laid physical eyes on Bucky, but they are all quietly shocked, stunned.

     Only Loki looks at her like she’s benediction. Only Loki sighs in relief as she limps those last steps through the door. The linen stretched across her feet is thin and the floor is chilly, creeping up through her soles, but the stone is icy balm on her blistered and damaged soles.

     Darcy tilts her head. “Loki?” she asks softly, not mistaking the rough rasp of her voice, unused and damaged by smoke and flame. She sways, resting thin and trembling fingers against the doorway, the roughness of the wood grounding her, centering her. Her other hand brushes against her belly briefly, draws back. “Is… is this a dream? Am I hallucinating again?”

     He’s up in an instant, gathering Darcy into his arms, and she feels his heart, slamming hummingbird fast against his ribs. She breathes deeply, taking in the scent of him, sags, and distantly feels him lift her, cradle her, draw her close to his chest, whispering words she can’t parse the entire time.

     There are words moving like a river, flowing over and around her, Stark and Rogers and Thor and Bucky, but here, in the cradle of Loki’s arms, Darcy can finally breathe freely once more. The hurt and terror and horror of what she’s done ebbs away, laps at the last few months and draws out the agony like Loki had once sucked Death’s poison from her very veins.

     “Loki,” Darcy whispers, resting her cheek against his shoulder. She’s shivering, she realizes, shaking like a leaf in a high wind, “Loki. Loki. Loki.”

     “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he whispers, lips brushing against her temple. She can feel the tracks of his tears as he moves and strokes her face and hair, can smell the salt of him. “I’ll never… I thought I lost you. Darcy, I thought you were gone.”

     “She is, trickster.”

Darcy pulls back and Hel is unfurling beneath her skin, batwings unfolding, the chill beginning to bake from her bones. There is a gasp behind her, Stark perhaps, or Thor. Darcy reaches out, cups Loki’s face in fingers gone thin and pale and near translucent, bones standing out in stark contrast beneath her paper-skin.

     “You’ve lost her, Friggason,” Hel’s voice curls out from between Darcy’s lips and Darcy can feel her body like a puppet pull away and twist to a graceful standing position just outside Loki’s reach. Loki’s face has gone expressionless and Hel doesn’t like that, not one bit. She’s about to poke and prod at him, to tear a wound into his soul to match the damage he’s inflicted in Darcy when Bran clears his throat.

     “Lady,” Bran says, voice warm and low. “I bid you good morn. It is a pleasure to see you awake.”

     There is a pause, a brief moment where Darcy and Hel are finely balanced, and then Hel tightens her grip and Darcy is tucked to the back of her own brain once again.

     “Sir, it has been some time. I see you keep… lesser company these days,” she replies, tongue sliding and curling around the syllables. “Pity, that.”

     “Now is not the time, nor the place, Lady, though I am always overjoyed when we meet,” Bran says, hands outstretched, showing that he means no harm. His fingers ghost along Darcy’s cheekbone, but do not touch. Behind them, Loki shifts and Thor makes a noise, low and grumbling deep in his chest. “But please, Lady, have mercy. Leave your supplicant be. Darcy cannot heal, nor rest, with you riding her shell so frequently and hard.”

     “My daughter is strong in many ways, but not physically,” Hel retorts sharply, stepping back from his touch and turning her nose up at him. “If I take control often it is to her benefit. I weather her as she needs to survive the coming storm.”

     Bran chuckles. “Human bodies are not built like the gods, Lady. She may yet fully be yours in time, but until then she still needs food, and drink, and rest. Release your grasp, please, Lady. Let Darcy recuperate. What use to you is a vessel damaged, bones and sinew alone?”

     Hel huffs out an annoyed breath but then smiles sweetly, stretching a hand out so close to Bran that he shivers from the chill, eyes fluttering. Black lace flutters across her fingers, shifting shadows in the dim green light. “So be it. I’ll let my daughter rest. For now. Since you asked so nicely.”

“Thank you, Lady,” Bran murmurs and this time it is Hel who ghosts fingers not quite touching his cheek.

“For you, my love, anything,” she replies.

     There is a soft noise behind her, a hurt sound, and then Hel has released Darcy and Darcy crumples. Before she can hit the ground Loki’s arms are around her again, and Darcy bursts into tears. “Loki, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!”

    

 


	8. Chapter 8

 

 

     The world goes grey around the edges and Darcy clings to Loki loosely, too tired to do much more than breathe and drift, held in his warm embrace. Snow and cold and then reverberating footsteps. Goodbyes, barely heard, a flash of amber eyes, a stutter-step, a golden-flecked smile and a warm, genuine finger stroking across her cheek. A tin of sweet-smelling herbs wrapped in another woolen shawl pressed into one hand. A pair of promises, sweetly vowed, to see her soon. Movement, and sunlight, and glare on snow and then dimness, darkness, metal and echoes and new people, new voices.

     Loki, her bulwark, through it all, warm and solid, a thin thread of his magic singing softly against her skin, her own sapphire shards sighing in reply, weakened and weary and worn.

     Words, whispered soft, but Darcy can hear them, in this place, this dim, pulling tide. The words slide against one another, a waterfall of white noise that slowly shifts and forms shape, form meaning.

     “ _Holy shit, what happened to her?”_

_“How long has it been since someone checked in? I thought you guys visited like last week?!”_

_“How did it get that bad?”_

_“Did they do something to her in the basement?”_

_“She looks like she’s about to keel over any second. Are we sure she didn’t_ actually _die?”_

     And Loki, always Loki, curled around her, protecting her, putting his body between Darcy and the world, stroking her hair and pressing small devotions into her flesh, barely there kisses, lips cool and soft and present, actually, physically present. Not a dream, not a projection, solid and real and clutching her close.

     “If they separate us again, I’ll kill them,” Darcy whispers into the column of Loki’s throat and her voice is not all Darcy and not all Hel, velvet-and-lace-wrapped around steel and stone, blood and bone. She feels him still around her; calm heart suddenly racing, warm skin chilling beneath her fingertips, as Loki draws back and regards her steadily, all his calm is a façade, she knows, his well-worn mask against the bitter bile the world has forced him to swallow again and again and again.

     “You cannot,” he whispers back, curling tighter around her, arms bracketing her.

     _Like a cage_ , Darcy thinks. A cage of Loki’s flesh and blood, his sinew and bone and breath. A prison she would never rend or rip or damage… except that Darcy wasn’t always _Darcy_ these days. She has to warn him, to get Loki to understand just how wrong the world has grown, how off-kilter and jagged it has become, how the holes in space and time allow the steps of gods to once echo again upon the earth.

     But she is tired, bone weary, and every inch of her aches and throbs. Her soles feel as if she’d danced like the Little Mermaid, a sliding samba through grated glass, every step a bloody mess.

     “We can’t go back to the Tower,” one of the others is saying. Nearby the doctor, Banner, watches Darcy and Loki with unwavering steadiness. Darcy contemplates telling him about the glow inside, the sickly pulse of the Hulk dozing and dreaming of smashing and the shivery sound of shattering glass. How beneath that, the Hulk dreams of their mother, and the blood in her hair, and his first birth, his first awakening, opening his eyes while their father beat Bruce black and blue and bloody in their foyer, their mother’s body a broken shell only feet away.

     “The world is made from bone and blood and stars,” Darcy tells Bruce solemnly, loudly enough that all commotion around them ceases, conversations going hard and still.

     Bruce frowns. “What?”

     Darcy’s hand lifts up, curls, and she can feel the tears begin to slip down her face, hot and welcome, releasing some sorrow settled in her breath and bones, sunk into her sinews and cells.

     “Becca,” she gasps, fingers twitching spasmodically. “She’s sorry she left you. She didn’t mean to but the pain was so big. She tried to stay. She’s… she’s so sorry. She loves you so much.” Then Darcy sobs again, curling into herself, feels the arms around her clutch her close, rock her gently. “The world is made of bone and blood and stars,” she repeats and shivers violently.

     Loki swallows convulsively; there is muted terror behind his eyes, and hard, close consideration. “Where… where did you hear that?”

     “Does it matter?” she asks, Hel glinting back at him. “He is coming and you are so very unprepared.”

     “Brother?” Thor asks behind her.   

     “Bruce? You okay, man?” Tony is squatting beside Bruce, glaring at Darcy and for an instant every eye in the plane is on the scientist, every breath baited.

     Then Bruce shudders, chokes, and laughs a little. He is crying, slowly at first, then harder. He curls into himself a little and Tony, at a loss for what to do, tentatively wraps arms around him. Movement, and then the Widow is there, her place in the cockpit empty, pushing Tony aside and drawing Bruce into her embrace.

     “What did she _say_?” she whisper-snarls to Loki. “What did she _do_ to him?!”

     “My m-mother,” Bruce hiccups, resting his messy curls against her shoulder, sobbing and shuddering around his words so they come out staccato and broken, but still as clear as he can. “She… Darcy didn’t do anything wrong. My mom… she was murdered. When I was four. I watched it happen.”

     Tony inhales sharply, air hissing over his teeth. “Bruce, buddy… maybe here isn’t the place to-“

     “He’s fine,” Darcy says softly. “His glow… his glow is quiet.” She indicates her own chest. “The green… the Hulk… he’s listening. He’s still. He wants to know. About his birth. About… her death. He can barely remember past the screaming. He can still smell the blood.”

     Behind her, a bit off curse. “She can sense the Hulk now?! What the hell happened to her?!”

     Beside Bruce, Natasha closes her eyes. A single tear snakes out the corner and slides down her cheek. “The other guy was born when his mother died.” It is not a question.

     “From death comes life,” Darcy agrees solemnly. “Bruce would have died then, in that moment, if the Hulk hadn’t woken. His purpose is to protect, nothing more. But… he’s young. Four… is so young. He gets overwhelmed. He’s still a baby, really.”

     Around her she can feel their surprise, their shock, the puzzle pieces that she can see so clearly slotting neatly into place. A low whistle from Barnes, a considering hum from Wanda.

     “That’s why the lullaby works so well,” Tony muses. “You’re literally putting a preschooler down for a nap.”

     “My mom is okay?” Bruce asks. His tears have slowed, his eyes are swollen and red, and his voice is clear, a bit rougher than normal, true, but easily understandable.

     “She rests well,” Darcy promises him, some thin part of her, the Hel part, stretching out a single tendril to prod at the soul of Bruce’s mother Rebecca, sleeping peacefully in the land of the dead. Her dreams, within the black, are of rocking Bruce as a baby, the milk-sweet scent of him, the satin of his skin, and his breath gusting against her bared breast, sweet memories Bruce drifting into dreams of his own looping ever eternally.

     There is a bitten off hiss behind her and Wanda approaches. Loki stiffens and Wanda makes a noise, somewhere between apology and defiance, but she takes another step and Loki doesn’t stop her.

     “Darcy… before… do you remember before? When you visited the Tower?”

     “I visited the Tower? When we got back from the Bifrost, you mean?” Darcy murmurs, already growing weary and weak. Hel’s touch is velvet in her mind, soothing and soft, promising rest and peace.

     “No. You… look, never mind. Hel, I assume, was there. I think that creature must have been her. She spoke of my brother, of Pietro. I… I was wondering if you could sense him. If he is okay, where he is.”

     “She’s _ill_ , Wanda, now is hardly the time-” Loki protests, but Darcy shakes her head.

     “Maximoff,” Darcy whispers, pressing her forehead against Loki’s neck. “Pietro… Maximoff…” she drifts for a moment, eyes fluttering closed, and she can sense Wanda’s sorrow spike like a shattering glass through the dark. Tendrils drift out, ride the eddies, Hel’s hand guiding her own, and there… the blank space where Pietro should have been. Had he been normal.

     It takes effort, but Darcy clears her throat, forces herself to sit up and meet the searching eyes of the young woman kneeling beside her. It is imperative that what she has to say is not be misconstrued, or mistaken. “Wanda. Your brother is not dead.”

     There is commotion from the cockpit, Hawkeye shoving past Stark who squawks and dives for the controls.

     “BULLSHIT!” Hawkeye snarls. Loki tightens around her, prepared to defend Darcy, but she raises one hand. She knows Clint, from New Mexico, from before, his sardonic smile and sly wit. Hawkeye, no matter how mad, would not hurt her.

“Clint?”

     “He died in my arms!” Hawkeye hisses, face red and screwed tight. “Got shot half a dozen times for me. So don’t you fucking tell me he isn’t dead. I don’t care who or what weird-ass thing you’ve got rattling around in that skull of yours, Darcy, but Pietro Maximoff died in my arms. I felt him bleed out!”

     Despite herself, Darcy chuckles. It is a dry sound, like bones scraping stone, wicked and dark and slow like molasses, and around her everyone save Loki takes a half-step back. Hel surfaces in her eyes, in the black that surges across her flesh, and she can feel Loki draw away slightly, careful not to touch Darcy’s bare flesh, the lacework patterns shifting and moving therein.

     “Pietro Maximoff and Wanda Maximoff were chosen by the Mind Gem,” Hel tells Clint coldly, irritated at the mortal idiocy of him, and the audacity to question her control and knowledge of her own realm eternal. “Unlocking their potential, their mutations, opening up their very DNA and rewriting the code of their souls. Do you honestly believe a speedster can be killed by normal, mortal means, little archer?”

Hel looks hard at him but, to his credit, Clint has never once flinched in the face of metaphorical death, and he’s unlikely to so now, even when faced with the face of literal Death a mere foot and a half away. Clint is Clint, foolhardy and stubborn and brave in a reckless sort of way that fills both Hel and Darcy with mingled admiration and exasperation. A muscle in his jaw clenches and Hel sighs aloud.

“They are… speedsters are like tardigrade,” Hel deigns to further explain to the disbelieving marksman, doing so only for Darcy’s sake, “or else they would not survive as they are, breaking the laws of physics and bending the universe to their will. He may have been damaged by bullets, yes, but Pietro Maximoff does not rest within my domain. Only beheading, drowning, and suffocation can kill a speedster before their time. Not much else, especially if the body remains intact.” She tilts her head, regarding him. “Pietro does not sleep with the dead. Neither does your brother.”

     Clint staggers back a step, his furious, reddened face going sickly paper white.

     “Tardigrade?” Wanda demands, ignoring Clint’s stunned silence. “What is a tardigrade?”

     “Water bear,” Bruce supplies shakily as Natasha stands and gathers Clint, guiding them both back to Stark and the cockpit of the quinjet, whispering low and quick into his ear. “They, uh, tardigrades can shut down their metabolism in extreme circumstances. Heat. Cold.” He hesitates. “Damage. They can force themselves into inertia, into hibernation. Dehydration if they have to. They heal if they can and then… wake up. It’s, uh, it’s been theorized that tardigrades can’t really die. That they’re immortal.”

     “Not quite,” Hel replies, letting herself slip back into the black of Darcy’s soul, point made and ego appeased. “But close.”

     There is another long silence as the ink fades from Darcy’s arms and she sags against Loki. “I hate it when she shoves forward like that,” Darcy admits after a moment, raising one arm and examining her flawless, pale skin. “I know it’s creepy, guys. I’m sorry.”

     Wanda’s mouth hangs open. “We did not cremate him,” she whispered. “And your goddess… she said… she said that where Pietro was, he was screaming.”

     Sam, the man with the wings, speaks and his calm tone is focused and firm. “You buried him?”

     “Where is he?” Clint demands, twisting in his chair, panic writ large all over him. “Is he in Sokovia?”

     Wanda shakes her head, face still ashen. “I had him buried close. In New York. The graveyard near the upstate facility. Not even five miles north.”

     “FRIDAY, have Vision meet us there,” Tony instructs the AI sharply. “Let’s go rescue a speedster.”

    

 


	9. Chapter 9

 

     Darcy slept in Loki’s arms during Pietro Maximoff’s exhumation, rousing only enough when a decidedly non-corpse-like body is rolled past her on a stretcher. The boy sleeping beneath the straps is pale and gaunt, nearly emaciated as Darcy, and his hair is silvery-white, but he is still young, still fresh. His chest rises and falls steadily and Bruce, hovering at his side, frequently checks his pulse, shaking his head in quiet awe. Wanda kneels beside the stretcher, knuckles white where she grips her brother’s hand, eyes unwavering as the plane lifts once more.

     “You’ve done well, Darcy,” Loki whispers and she smiles against his throat, comfortable in his embrace, warm at his compliment. Drifting away again, Darcy is glad that, at last, she has been of a little help.

 

     When she dreams, Darcy rambles far and wide, but she does not remember. Her travels are lost in the mists and Hel’s tender ministrations.

 

 

     When next she wakes, Darcy finds herself tucked in an unfamiliar bed, settled in an unfamiliar room. The bed is like a cloud, thick and puffy and Darcy contemplates drifting off again, but Hel twists and stretches beneath her skin, threatening to step forward and take over if Darcy slips down into dreams once more. There are no windows here, or if there are, they are well concealed. The only light is the dimmest of glimmers around the upper corners of the room, a fancy rope light dialed way down or something similar, barely illuminating the boundaries of Darcy’s new world.

     “Did I steal a death from you?” Darcy asks the empty room, and feels Hel’s warm chuckle like a breeze against her skin.

     The answer from Hel within is swift and, Darcy is bemused to realize, amused. _No, daughter, you did me a service. Dead speedsters refuse to stay dead or lie still. They’re forever zipping about. Better to rouse him now. He’ll come and I’ll welcome him… in time. When he has slowed. When he can be still. Not before. It is not yet his time._

     “Awesome,” Darcy says and slowly takes stock of her injuries and damage. Her feet are no longer bound up with strips of linen, the blisters have been drained and rebandaged, and she can feel some thick salve beneath the gauze. She sports heavy bruises around her wrists and ankles, new ones, tender and fresh, purpling along the edges, to match another two in the inner bends of her elbows and more along the back of her hands. Darcy’s head throbs. She feels shaky and starved, wondering when the last time she ate was.

     “Can I trust you not to shove forward and freak anyone else out? Can you keep your messages from the dead to yourself for a bit?”

     _And should your comrades ask, daughter? What then_?

     “Ask a direct question, sure if you want, you can give a direct answer. But only then, okay?”

     _As you wish_. And Hel goes silent and contemplative in Darcy’s mind, retreating to some shadowy corner to watch and observe. Darcy isn’t sure how she knows this, but she thinks Hel is thinking of Bran, and the green-man who lives beneath his skin.

     “Hel?” Darcy asks suddenly, her mind also revolving around growing things, “I dreamed… before.”

     Silence within. Waiting.

     “Of… of a baby. Of Fionnula… she said I was pregnant when I arrived to Blackwood Cottage but… but I lost the baby not too long after.”

     Further quiet, deep and dark, a velvet abyss, waiting.

     Then, after some time: _This is the truth_.

     One slow tear snakes down Darcy’s face. Her hand falters in the air above her middle, hesitates, but does not sink down or touch the slope of her belly. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

     There follows no reply, but Darcy needs none. Those months were lost in a haze of sleeping and waking and cold and sorrow. She thinks that maybe, if she’d remembered the bleeding, or even missing her menses, that perhaps this tiny tragedy would be more of a punch to the gut. Instead it is a small thing, fragile, like a bruised butterfly, briefly captured and released. It hurts, but not like it could. Darcy’d slept and slept and slept with only Fionnula knowing the way of things. She is uncertain if this is something to weep over or be grateful for. Still, part of it niggles in the back of her mind, gnawing quietly.

     “Fuck it,” Darcy decides and begins to move, done with inaction, done with passivity. She struggles across the room and before she reaches the door it slips open. No one is on the other side.

“Thanks, FRIDAY,” Darcy mutters.

“You are welcome, Miss Lewis.”

It is dark in the hallway. Slowly lights rouse themselves into the barest glimmer, spaced evenly near the floor, and Darcy smiles. It’s like an airplane. Follow the lights to the closest available exit.

FRIDAY leads Darcy to the common room and here is where Darcy seeks out coffee and creamer, sugar and a small jar of pumpkin spice, another of cinnamon.

She needs the warmth for what is to come.

The coffee is doctored and in the mug when the elevator slides open and the silver-armed man, Bucky, steps out. His face is impressively impassive, but Darcy can taste his surprise at finding her there. She had not startled him, not quite, but she hadn’t figured into whatever calculations he had. He regrouped with stunning speed, the only indication that she’d surprised him a startled flick of his eyes her way as he slipped on silent feet out of the elevator and toward the kitchen and Darcy.

“You’re awake.”

“Am I?” Darcy chuckled. “There’s more coffee, if you want.”

He inclines his head, the barest of thanks, and sorts out his own mug and drink before settling on the barstool across from her. He looks for a long moment at the bruises bracketing her wrists. “I’m not used to anyone other than Stark or maybe Loki being up this time of night.”

She restrains the urge to rub at her wrists, to prod the fresh damage. “What time is it anyway?”

Bucky’s coffee is black, inky in his cup. He grimaces at the taste before answering. “Three-forty-five.”

“Nightmares?”

“Yeah.” He flicks another gaze at her beneath those long lashes of his. “You’ve been asleep for a week. Banner said you would surface last night, took you off the IV and the… the restraints. Then he had Thor carry you up to the guest room. Said he didn’t think you’d do well waking up in the infirmary for the hundredth time. Especially not bound.” He takes a sip of coffee, eying her over the edge of the mug.

“Tying people down the new procedure?”

“Had to. You started sleepwalking. That lady in the bog wasn’t kidding about you rambling around at all hours. At first Banner tried to just have FRIDAY keep you in contained areas but you somehow got outside and went off the landing pad. Stark caught you but you still didn’t wake up. Steve made the call to tie you down for your own safety.”

Darcy traces one finger against the fresh bruise. “I suppose I should be grateful then. But Loki would have stayed with me and kept me from taking a header… I think. Probably. Where is he? Out on assignment again?” It’s hard to ask the question, but somehow Darcy trusts Bucky to be straight with her in a way she doesn’t quite trust the Captain to accomplish, doesn’t believe Natasha or Clint capable of.

“No. Back in the basement. In his cage.”

Darcy’s lip curls up in a snarl and Bucky tenses instantly, hand going to his hip. She can feel Hel pushing at her inner walls, urging Darcy to let her loose and it takes all of Darcy’s will and concentration to soothe the velvet down, to stroke Hel back to her quiet watchfulness.

It takes long, uneasy minutes, but Bucky’s hackles eventually settle and he mostly relaxes again, but his gaze is more discerning now, assessing.

“Why?” is all Darcy asks and she can tell Bucky is weighing the benefits and potential fallout of telling her. In the end, after long moments of him examining her thoroughly, reminding Darcy that this man was a hunter in his heart, a predator, grace and speed and stealth wound taut and brutal within his flesh, something in Darcy’s face must have convinced him.

“At first they thought he’d kidnapped you to Asgard. Thor swore up and down you were dead, that the pair of you weren’t there. So they put up that plaque over by that…” here it is Bucky’s lip that curls into a snarl, “that thing in the park.”

“I saw it, before,” Darcy admits. “But when we exited the Bifrost they separated us immediately.”

“Yeah. SHIELD’s been rebuilt a few times in the last five years or so. Handed from one person to another. Now Hill’s got it. She seems to be doing a decent enough job, Fury has no complaints best as I can tell, but what do you do when your pet astrophysicist’s best friend comes back from five years of being dead? Everyone went a little buggy, doll. Suddenly Loki’s back from the dead? And loose? It was supposed to be temporary – get you away from him, give you time to let whatever Stockholm bullshit you’d suffered wear off a bit, get a shrink in there to jabber you back to a sane place…”

“Lovely,” Darcy sighs.

“Yeah, well, you shouted to anyone who’d listen that you hadn’t been kidnapped, that Loki had repented and suffered and so on and so forth. Thor swore you went into the world of the dead and dragged his brother out. Loki said the same thing except he worried cuz… you offered your soul, doll? Seriously?”

“Only thing she’d take. I didn’t know it was already spoken for,” Darcy mutters. “I’m still not entirely sure who has it, to be honest.” Inside she can feel Hel shift. This was still a tender subject for the Death goddess. Darcy decided to hurry the conversation along.

“By time everyone realized you were sane, and he was sane, and Loki honestly intended to make up for all his damage from before, well…” Bucky took a deep breath, closed his eyes. “Plus… it got complicated, fast. Ever see a dragon, doll?”

Darcy froze as beneath her skin Hel grew agitated.

“What?”

“A real, live dragon. Scales, teeth, wings, the whole nine. Flapping its way across midtown maybe four days after they bustled you off.

“A dragon,” Darcy said flatly. “Wow. So they kept me there for some serious safekeeping, is what you’re saying.”

“Amid other things. Worked when Loki came down the first time, right? Bundled Jane off to Norway, safe out of his reach. Figured they should do the same for you.”

“Ass end of Scotland, you mean. As least Norway has other people and civilization, not a bunch of… supplicants and their pet gods.”

“True,” Bucky chuckled. “That was a bit of a turn.” His hand snakes up and briefly touches where Nogens had clapped him on the shoulder. “Though knowing now what we didn’t know then… things make a little bit more sense.”

“Care to share with the class, Barnes?”

Bucky flushes. “Can’t. Soon, maybe. Steve’s pushing for it, at least. Stark too. And Loki. Leaving you out of the loop before was the wrong call. We know that now.”

Darcy makes a derisive noise. She should have figured that even now they’d play their secrets close to the vest. “So if you all were so determined to keep me safe from dragons why leave me there alone and unprotected? Why keep Loki from me? Or set me up with an agent or something?”

“You were under supervision but there was something hinky with the feed. No one, not even Stark, could get it working steadily, and he tried to fix it every free chance he got. It cut out a lot. In the end, a month ago or so, it just up and died. They got nothing.”

“Rather have had Loki,” Darcy grumps, crossing her arms across her chest and scowling. “The damn cuff Natasha put on me wasn’t even on or hooked up to anything, Barnes. At least Loki would’ve kept me from wandering off and getting involved with gods.”

Bucky laughs, despite himself. “Didn’t quite work like that, doll. He couldn’t be there, no matter how hard he wanted it. Loki made a deal with Hill. One year. SHIELD keeps you safe for a year and he proves to them that he can work for the white hats, that he can be useful, and that he can make a place for you both here. Hill was amenable with one stipulation. Loki could only visit under supervision, and with permission, and he had to wear some gaudy shit to keep his magic contained when he wasn’t fighting. This was supposed to be his punishment. You weren’t to know of his comings and goings or anything going on in the outside world. She figured you’d already gotten yourself in enough trouble with calling down a death goddess into Central Park and all.”

Darcy’s fingers reach up and brush the inky lace at her throat. “Yeah, that didn’t end up going so well.”

Bucky shrugs. “Way that old lady and guy told it, doll, you would’ve been taken by Death no matter what you did. Said you were born to it, shaped for it special.”

“Yay,” Darcy says flatly. “Other people get to have fertility goddesses sitting in their skin. I get the lady with claws and a serious vitamin D deficiency.”

Smothering a smile, Bucky throws back the dregs of his coffee, swallows the bitter with a manly-type grimace. “Look, you’re back. You’ve got a say in this, especially now. No one was trying to abandon you or punish you. Vision’s been … edgy lately. Says the Mind Gem is trying to communicate with him. Maybe you can help somehow, have some insight or something.”

“We’ll see, I don’t know how much help I’ll be. I’m not Hel and she doesn’t always share what she knows. And with Loki fucking locked up again, honestly, I’m not going to want to help much. I’m not gonna abide by that bullshit,” Darcy says sharply. “I don’t care what Loki agreed to with Fury or whoever, I didn’t do jack shit wrong and I’ll be damned if we’re kept apart due to it.”

“Take is up with Hill, then,” Bucky suggests, sliding off his stool. “I’m gonna go take a few turns around the track. Work some of this energy off.”

Darcy chews her lower lip, then asks, “Hey, Barnes?”

Bucky pauses and turns back to face her; he was already halfway across the room. “Yeah, doll?”

“What does it feel like for you? His touch?”

There is a long, long pause, but not because Bucky doesn’t have an answer, Darcy can tell. It’s more that he seems to have his own questions and isn’t quite sure how to go about asking them. He runs both hands through his messy hair, sighs, and then shakes his head.

“Everything is… bigger. More. I can smell… things. What the serum did, it changed me, made me faster and stronger and more durable. It made my mind and my memories work faster and better – in general, I mean, the torture and wipes didn’t exactly help specific memories stick.”

Bucky’s lips twist and for a second his eyes go dark and feral. Deep inside something jerks, nervous, within Darcy before Bucky takes a long, slow, shaky breath and seems to shake off the bottled fury. “My senses, too. See further. Hear better. Taste, touch, smell, sense of time and balance, the whole nine, doll. But this… this is something else entirely and I’ll be honest with you, I love it but it’s bothering me too.”

“Does it hurt?” Darcy’s fingers brush nervously against the thin, pale scars at her wrist. “I know you’re not actually a supplicant but he did give you a gift…”

“Doesn’t hurt. It’s more that it makes me uncomfortable. My sleep is shit this week but it’s not bothering me like it would’ve before. The nights I don’t have flashbacks or nightmares I can barely get an hour in before I’m up and raring to go. I did that as the Asset, yeah, for days at a time if I needed to but it was… it was effort, sometimes. I’d crash hard afterward.”

He hesitates and Darcy prompts, “But now?”

“Now it’s easy,” Bucky whispers, looking spooked. “One sleep cycle and I’m good to go for another twenty-four. It’s eerie. And I’m normally always alert, right? But this is a whole different level. I’m getting all kinds of input I never imagined before and it’s kind of amazing and kind of creepy all at once.” He pitches his voice low. “For example, minute I stepped in the building off the quinjet I knew that Pepper was havin’ a visit from her Aunt Flo.”

It takes Darcy a beat to realize what Bucky is talking about and when she does, her eyes go wide and she sucks in a surprised, sharp breath. “Seriously?”

Bucky nods, flushing. “She wasn’t anywhere near the landing pad, either, she was in her office when we came in. And Clint? He had onions on his burger for lunch… three days ago. Stark’s on a science-bender to detox, but he hasn’t told anyone what he’s trying. He keeps reaching for the bottle of bourbon beneath his bench and when it’s not there he panics a little and has a big adrenaline dump. And Thor is down in his room right now having another one of those Jane-dreams. He’s been having them every night this week, probably because they’ve been talking and visiting you, bumping into each other all the time.”

“Jane-dreams?” Darcy asks, raising an eyebrow.

Once upon a time, Darcy knew, Bucky had been a lady-killer. His torture and remaking at the hands of Hydra had stripped that from him somewhat and this particular moment must have been very uncomfortable for him, because Bucky actually blushed, a deep, dark ruddy red. “You know, doll. Dreams. _Dream_ -dreams.” His head made a little aborted back and forth motion and his eyes flicked down to his lap and back up to Darcy’s face.

Bucky, she notes, looks miserable.

“Of the hot and heavy variety?” Darcy asks, taking pity on him, and whistles long and low, surprised. “I didn’t even know Thor still felt that way about her.”

Snorting, Bucky makes a ‘what can you do’ sort of shrug and says, “They’re still nuts about one another. I walk into a room they’re both in and I have to turn around half the time and walk right back out. It smells like sex before anything has even _happened_.”

“No kidding? What do horny-hormones smell like?” Darcy asks, curious.

“Burned rubber, believe it or not,” Bucky laughs. “And the funny thing is, there’s this other layer entirely. Like there’s the, err, desire part. That’s the rubber. But there’s this deeper smell, too, like vanilla and fresh cream. I’m talking fresh cream from the 40’s, mind, none of this shit you have now. Straight from the cow, warm.”

Darcy bites back a laugh and the urge to make a ‘get off my lawn’ comment. “So what does warm cow-cream-and-vanilla scent represent then?”

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Love.”

She chuckles. “You seem pretty certain about that, Barnes. Don’t even wanna take a second to think on that one?”

His answering smile is sad and wistful. “Darcy, do you know how many people in this building are head over heels for one another? You walk in on Stark and Pepper in his lab? Cream and vanilla. Thor and Jane in your med bay? Cream and vanilla. Steve and Sharon on the track? Cream and vanilla. Hell, even Wanda starts smelling sweet when Vision wanders through the room.” Then Bucky hesitates, eyes searching her face closely.

“When we got back Loki carried you to the med bay himself. Wouldn’t let anyone else go near you until he had you nice and settled and before he got banished down below… your bay was like a damn bakery, doll. Could smell it four floors in every direction.”

She swallows hard at that, turns her face away. Darcy can faintly see her reflection in the silvered windows, but it is a dark mirror, the curve and angles of her features caught in shadows, haloed in background evening light. “Sure,” she agrees, voice shaking. “You can love someone all you want and still abandon them. You can love them and hurt them. Hell, loving them probably makes it easier. You know all the best ways to strip them to the bone.”

This isn’t entirely fair, Darcy knows, it’s her mother she’s thinking about, her father, her brothers, not Loki, but the ache still pulses in time with her heartbeat, the feeling of her momma’s leather belt cutting flesh no worse than the sting of Loki’s rejection and refusal to speak with her, to even hint at what was going on.

“Little harsh, wouldn’t you say?”

“I wasn’t allowed to say, was I?” Darcy’s heart hurts. Every inch of her aches - breathing is a small agony, and when she moves too fast, she feels as if she is going to break apart, blown to the four winds like ash and stardust. Her thumb runs over her ring finger, seeking out familiar pain, the broken curls of Loki’s golden ring. But she’d lost it somewhere in Scotland, hadn’t she? There’s regret there and sorrow and annoyance. Her memories were all so muddled, so muddled and awful and _wrong_.

“If you’d stop and pull your head out of your ass, Darcy, you’d see that you’re not the only one who was suffering,” Bucky rebukes her, but gently. “You think Natasha and the Hawk went out there with Loki last week on a whim? Even with his magic mostly locked down, Loki heard you, doll, all the way from Scotland. We’d just finished up a report, were prepping to get cleaned up, when Loki stood up so fast he knocked over the situation table onto Stark and Steve. Said you were crying for him. Literally begged Natasha to bail on her weekend and escort him to see you. No notice. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“You really know the nicest things to say to a lady, Barnes,” Darcy says dryly, but she can sense the truth in what he says, can feel the shape of the words like benediction against her skin.

“I’m just saying, if you’re thinking of being pissed at him, maybe be pissed at something he had control over. He handed all his control away to keep you.”

Bucky half turns away and Darcy remembers that Barnes knew a thing or two about having his control stripped away. A muscle in her cheek jumps and she dips her head. Darcy hasn’t even begun crying before Bucky’s arms are around her, tentative and uncertain. He tugs her forward until her forehead is nestled in the curve between neck and shoulder, her tears burning and stinging behind her lids.

“Let it go,” he suggests, and his skin is so hot, like coals against her cheeks. “I’ve got you, doll. I’ve got you.”


	10. Chapter 10

 

 

 

It’s nearly sunrise before Darcy has cried herself out. Bucky’s shirt is tear-drenched and snot-stained but he doesn’t seem unhappy; in fact Darcy has never seen him look lighter or freer, as if taking on her pain allowed a great weight to be stripped from him. He pats her on the shoulder and suggests that she checks in with medical before doing much else, and then saunters toward the elevator, clearly meaning to return to his own apartment and change out of his stained shirt.

Darcy isn’t thrilled at the idea, but decides that if she does this thing now, shortly after she’s woken, then they’re less likely to bother her later when she goes to the basement.

Medical is surprisingly quick and mostly painless. The nurses only take a few vials of blood, weigh her, check her blood pressure and temperature, and change the bandages on her feet before setting Darcy free to wander again with only an admonition to not skip meals for the next few weeks. At first Darcy is insulted until she catches sight of her face in the silvered side of the paper towel holder; it might just be a warped reflection, but she looks damn near skeletal, her eyes barely glints in giant dark pools.

Darcy makes a point to pick up a coffee and a donut at the nurses station on the way to the elevator. Takes the time to doctor her drink with several spoonfuls of sugar and cream, thinking of Bucky and his newfound spectrum of scents and emotions. Wonders if Hel’s movement inside her is something she’ll ever grow accustomed to, if she even wants to feel at ease with the velvet-cold and death.

She suspects she won’t.

It has been long enough and yet Darcy hesitates outside the elevator doors. She needs to see Loki like she needs air and sleep and food. She needs to touch him, to brush her fingers against his face, to hold him close and feel the thump of his heartbeat beneath her palm.

He’d died for her.

She’d walked alive into Helheim for him.

And yet she hesitates.

Outside the window there is movement and light, people going about their mourning routines. New York has gone back to something similar to what it once was in the five years she spent fetching Loki from the realm of the dead and the subsequent months since but it is not fully restored to its former glory. May never be.

Darcy’s left palm disconnects from the Styrofoam cup she cupped between her hands; idly it slips down to hover just above her belly, not quite touching but still there and present. Waiting.

 _A sacrifice had to be made_ , Hel whispers again. _Better the unborn, the barely formed, than Loki_. _And while I reside within your flesh, my daughter, you are incapable of carrying life within you_. She says no more but there is a niggling sense of ‘Get used to it’ that remains unspoken, slipped in between the lines.

Sometimes, Darcy muses, Hel is kindness – forgetting, and calm, and peace, letting go and giving in, no pain or suffering or sorrow - but in moments like these, she is cruelty incarnate without even having to expend effort. She thinks back on Ravi and his mother Beth, two bony figures curled together like nestled commas on her old bed in Utopia. He would be a child now, no longer a baby, and Beth would be five years older, likely grown into motherhood, of an age to be ripe with child again if she’d found another man to share her bed. Darcy had taught Beth to read despite Beth’s dyslexia; does Beth now sit with Ravi as Darcy sat with her, turning pages and running her finger along the paper, beneath the print, Ravi cuddled close and solid and warm in her lap?

Darcy’s finger’s spasm. She pulls them away from her belly, tightens them into a fist.

A child is something Darcy never knew she longed for until she learned it had been taken from her. Not in this moment, no, her world is still too twisted and strange to bring life into it, but someday… someday, she now knows, it is something she wanted… wants.

And Loki… they hadn’t spoken of it at all.

 _Perhaps it was just a dream_ , Darcy thinks, but knows that to be false reckoning. The explanations given for Loki’s odd behavior notwithstanding, too many dreams of late have been reality. Too many truths uncovered in her nighttime rambles and Darcy feels like a kaleidoscope girl, all disjointed and mirrored, dreams melding into reality and reality breaking apart and reforming without her will or permission.

The elevator opens and there is no one inside. FRIDAY suggesting not so subtly for Darcy to get a move on.

“I’m going, I’m going,” Darcy mutters and slips into the elevator. It slides down the shaft quickly and silently. It does not stop at any other floors.

When Darcy steps out into the basement once more she is struck at how time changes all things. When before the place was empty and bare, Frigga’s cage for Loki behind a gate and lit well, now the basement is made up like an apartment behind a clear, golden wall shaped of familiar magic. There is a small antechamber for a guard to watch the prince of Asgard; a comfortable-looking couch, a small fridge and sink, a bathroom door against the far wall, a card table and four chairs.

It is dark in the apartment on the other side of the golden glimmering glass. Loki is likely sleeping and on the couch Steve Rogers is idly sketching, not even looking up as Darcy steps closer.

“Heard you were getting close to waking up,” he says softly, pitching his voice above a whisper, but still too low to disturb Loki’s sleep. “Glad to see the doc was right. How are your wrists?”

“Hurting,” Darcy sighs, settling on the couch next to him, drawing her feet beneath her thighs and leaning against the arm of the couch, resting her jaw on her palm. “Do you take turns guarding him?”

“If we didn’t, he might slip up and his deal with Hill would be forfeit.” Steve looks up then, considering her. “Believe it or not, mad as we are at the bullshit he pulled, Loki’s actually changed a lot. Even Clint and Nat see it, though he’s still not entirely in their good graces yet. Hill’s paranoia aside, Loki’s one of us now.”

“I’m glad he has you,” Darcy murmurs, but says nothing more. It is cold in the basement, but it’s nothing compared to the chill of the Scottish cottage, the heavy snowfall.

Steve sketches for maybe another half hour before the elevator slides open again and the watch is handed off. Wanda touches his shoulder and Steve sighs, frowning at his art, before packing up his supplies. He doesn’t say goodbye, just pats Darcy once on the knee closest to him, nods, and leaves.

Wanda settles into the divot he left behind; phone in hand, expression serene, silent as the grave. They sit in companionable, comfortable quiet for long minutes, and Darcy concentrates on just breathing steadily and even, on keeping her feelings under tight reign. This close the witch smells like patchouli and clove, some mix overlaid with lavender and rose. Her hair slides silky against her shoulders and Darcy, when she is certain Wanda is not paying her any mind, reaches up to touch her own strands, expecting grit and oil. She’s surprised to discover that her hair is clean, untangled, and soft. Someone had indeed been taking good care of her while she lay trussed up and sleeping.

“I have a problem,” Darcy says suddenly in the stillness. Wanda jerks a little, startled, and Darcy is once again reminded that this young woman wasn’t even an Avenger when Natasha had bundled her off to the cottage. She is young, and inexperienced, still wide-eyed.

“What can I help you with?” Wanda asks, setting her phone aside and giving Darcy her full attention.

Darcy struggles to begin, to tell Wanda of her fears and the words Hel whispered to her the night she took Darcy by the hand and took her as a daughter in the darkness. A tear slips down her cheek; the words will not come.

“Oh, please don’t cry!” Wanda is not quite frantic, but she is warm and kind and her arms tentatively come around Darcy’s shoulders, her fingers gingerly stroking the knots Darcy didn’t even know she carried in her neck. “Please,” Wanda whispers, voice broken and damp against the fall of Darcy’s hair. “Whatever it is, I will help you. You gave me back Pietro when I thought him lost forever. For you I would do any thing.”

“Hel… the night she took me… she told me that Loki’d found another,” Darcy whispers then. It takes great effort as she is filled with shame, but Darcy has to get this out, before the sick worry of it eats her alive. Before the uncertainty breaks her again. “I thought it was you.”

There is a long pause, one so long that Darcy’s heart begins to stutter in her chest, and then Wanda shakes. She pulls back and her lips are twisted tightly together. Her shoulders jerk once, twice, and then the laughter comes, a waterfall of mirth, accompanied by hiccups and tears, one hand pressed tightly to her lips to smother the noise.

“Oh, no, Darcy, no!” Wanda’s free hand flutters around Darcy’s shoulders and face, looking for a safe place to land. “Never, Darcy, never. Loki has never looked at another in all the time I’ve been here. His thoughts are for work, Thor, or you. Nothing else. Getting him to take the time to _eat_ is a challenge some days.”

Hel lied?

There is movement within - a smirk. _No lie, just misdirection, daughter of mine. You love a trickster, surely such mischief is second nature by now_?

Darcy’s head dips down, she buries her face in her hands. “Damn it. Fucking _damn_ it!”

Wanda’s laughter has ceased. “Darcy?”

“Who was he dancing with then? Who gave him that necklace?” Darcy waves a hand at her own throat. “Hel said he was in the arms of another.”

“I don’t know if this is who she refers to, but the necklace Loki wears was a gift from his mother at Hill’s request. She delivered it at one of Stark’s parties not too long ago. The cuff was not working as it should and since corralling his magic is part of his probation, he is to wear the necklace unless we’re on assignment. Only Thor has the way of loosening it.”

“That _bitch_!” Darcy says with vehemence.

Wanda raises one elegant eyebrow, startled. “Who? Frigga? Hill?”

“Hel,” Darcy sighs. “I’m a goddamn idiot. Again.”

Wanda’s expression clears. “I understand.”

“She’s right, I should’ve been… I should’ve questioned what she was saying more.”

There is a movement in her mind, not an apology, but a sort of softness, the faintest regret, and Darcy wonders. She’s gathered by now that the gods are like water, moving to fill the shape of the vessel they’re in, a symbiotic loop, feeding off one another, feelings and thoughts and intention intertwined. Does Hel truly regret what she said and did to Darcy before they joined? Can death itself change so much?

A brush of velvet. Not quite an affirmation but then again Darcy knows that Hel is proud and this is the closest to an apology she’s ever going to get. Inwardly shrugging, Darcy lets it go. She should be madder but she’s no longer in the ass-end of nowhere, and she knows it’s because of Hel’s actions. Loki is here, just a short distance away, behind that wall.

 _Fine_ , Darcy relents. _I forgive you_.

In the black… surprise. Pleasure.

And a promise: _So long as we are joined, daughter, I shall not seek to trick you into compliance again_.

 _Fair enough_ , Darcy replies and they settle together.

Yawning, Darcy curls up uncomfortably on the couch. She is a small woman, but still feels all legs and elbows and knees next to the scarlet witch beside her. After a bit, Wanda chuckles, rises, and goes to a closet on the far wall Darcy hadn’t noticed. She returns with a throw pillow and a couple of blankets, settles back in her seat, and sets the pillow in her lap. “Rest,” she offers, patting the pillow. “You are recovering and I do not bite.”

Though she barely knows this girl, Darcy is tempted. Wanda isn’t going to hurt her, the couch would be much more comfortable if she could stretch out a little, and Darcy was unwilling to return to her quarters without seeing Loki but who knew how long it’d be before the prince woke up?

“Fine,” Darcy grumbles and wiggles into Wanda’s lap, resting her head on the pillow and stretching her legs out on the couch. Wanda draws the blankets around them and returns to her phone. It takes only minutes for the exhaustion to sweep through her and over her; Darcy drifts into sleep.

 


	11. Chapter 11

 

When she rouses next Darcy is warm and comfortable, her muscles surprisingly lax. She feels truly rested for the first time in ages. There is a hand playing idly with a lock of her hair, stroking it softly, and the faint tugging feels nice. There are voices, soft and low, whispering around her. At first Darcy doesn’t concentrate on their words, just basks in the flow of their conversation eddying around her, but after a few minutes she hears her own name. It takes effort but Darcy keeps her body still and relaxed, her breathing steady; she doesn’t want them to know she’s awake.

“-sleepwalking. Normally she’d have looped the tower twice by now. I wonder if it’s because you’ve got her? Is it a magic thing?” Sam, Darcy guesses. She’s barely heard him speak before, but his voice is kind and calm and warm.

“It is possible,” Wanda agrees, voice hardly above a whisper, and Darcy realizes that her head is still in the witch’s lap. It must be Wanda idly playing with her hair. “She rests easier in company, that is for sure.” Then Wanda’s voice hardens slightly. “It was a bad decision to send her away. Solitary confinement sends people mad. Even in her sleep she seeks others.”

“Hardly my choice,” Loki replies, voice faintly muffled, and it takes all Darcy has within her to not leap up and throw herself at him. He sounds further away than the others and she realizes that he must still be in his apartment, conversing through the golden magic wall to Wanda and Sam. “I would have rested easier myself if she’d been in the tower this entire time but I was not to be trusted at first.” His voice pitches low and sad. “Jane still feels I’ve done Darcy ill.”

“Jane will come around, man,” Sam soothes Loki easily. “Darcy’s her best friend, right? Humans are always weird when it comes to our best friends. Bucky and I _hated_ each other for _months_ after we first met. Took ages for Steve to get into our heads that he could be buddies with both of us without it having to be this _thing_ , you know?”

Loki sighs. “I worry less what Jane feels about me than what she shall convince Darcy of. Our… bond… has been strained of late.”

“Not entirely your fault,” Wanda says. “This Hel woman… the way Darcy spoke of her whispers and words… I fear for whatever lies she told her.”

Loki snorts. “No. Darcy is loyal unto… well, unto death. If she doubted my devotion due to Hel’s words, then it was because my actions gave her cause to do so. She would not have given in had I been more forthright. Had I found a way – any way at all – to contact her more.”

“She’s here now, man,” Sam says softly. “Literally. Right here. All you can do is try to make up for past mistakes. Own up to them. Be honest with her. Apologize. Let her decide what she wants to do next. And if she doesn’t bail, if she decides to give you another chance, then be grateful for it and don’t make the same mistakes again.”

There is long silence and Darcy can’t help but allow a sleepy sigh to slip past her lips. She feels Wanda still above her and decides that the girl’s legs must be dead from holding her weight so long. Slowly, languorously, Darcy stretches like a cat, arching her back and purring faintly in the back of her throat.

“Best. Sleep. In forever,” she mumbles throatily, curling her toes and wiggling her feet beneath the blanket. Then, slowly, she flutters her eyes open and smiles at Wanda. “Hey, you. Thanks for letting me drool all over you. How long was I out?”

“As long as you needed to be,” Wanda says with a small smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling up.

“Terrestrial time is a little more helpful than Cryptic Central Standard,” Darcy retorts, but she is also smiling. Then she sees that Sam is leaning over the back of the couch. “Hey. Sam, right?”

“Got it in one. Nice to officially meet you, Darcy.” Sam pokes his hand toward her to shake. Darcy lets him take it, squeeze her fingers once, and then she groans. When he raises an eyebrow she shrugs.

“I’m kind of sore in general these days. Help me up?”

“No problem.” Sam tugs on their joined hands and helps Darcy lean against the back of the couch. Her head is tilted forward, her hair covering her face. She knows that when she looks up Loki will be there, just out of reach, and she is frightened. While Darcy isn’t lying – she is sore to the very core of her, her wrists and ankles ache, breathing is difficult, and the soles of her feet feel uncomfortably tight – she hides due to the fact that she doesn’t want to face this, face him, face the distance between them and the misunderstandings and the lies.

Darcy knows that in her heart she has never been truly brave.

It takes her a second or two of steady, pained breathing before she raises her head.

Loki is there, hand hovering so close to the edge of the golden wall that the magic sparks and sizzles at his proximity. She inhales, long and slow, and says, “Hi.”

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “Hi.”

Beside her Wanda shifts, gathers up the pillow and her phone, and walks quickly and quietly toward the elevator. Sam goes with her, though Darcy only hears Wanda step through the doors. Right. Someone they trust has to stay with Loki and talk him out of doing something dumb. Right. But Sam is a good kind of guy. He’d retreated across the room. Given them privacy.

Loki is watching her closely, expression open and warm, but there is uncertainty and trepidation in the lines of his face. Darcy nervously chews on her lower lip and his eyes dart there, zeroing in. Loki inhales heavily, swallows hard, and his pupils expand. He can’t seem to drag his gaze from her mouth and it thrills Darcy, sending a bolt right to the center of her. She hasn’t felt like this… well, since before the Bifrost, to be honest. Hasn’t felt desire, wanting, since before they’d held hands and returned home. It’s ridiculous that just being in proximity of Loki is still enough to rev up her engine. Remembering the feel of those broad shoulders beneath her hands, that lithe body pressing down on her, his cool breath ghosting across her flesh, and those long, talented fingers slipping down between her thighs.

Loki’s own tongue darts out, flicks along his lips, and Darcy feels herself flush _hard_ at the sight, actually swaying minutely in his direction. The motion, slight as it was, does not go unnoticed and the corners of Loki’s mouth curl again, very faintly, but unmistakably smug.

“Yeah, yeah, I missed you,” Darcy sniffs, turning her face away to hide her embarrassment. She crosses her arms under her chest to stop from leaping up and trying to shove through the wall herself. “Stop looking at me like you’re gonna throw me down and ravish me unless you actually have plans to do so. It’s a tease and totally unfair.”

The faint smirk is a full-on grin now. Loki rocks from his heels to his toes and back again, tucking his hands behind his back. “And what would you say if I said that I fully intend to, Darcy? To lay you beneath me and take you apart over and over again? To lay those silken waves out in a fan upon my pillow and arch your back and worship every line and curve of you until your universe has narrowed to my name upon your lips and your gasps in my ears?”

 _Uumph, holy shit, Loki. Utterly unfair_!

“I’d say that there’s a wall and a probationary period still kinda standing in the way of that, _Loki_ ,” Darcy retorts tartly, but there’s no real heat in her words. She can’t get the image of undulating over him out of her head, his fingers pressing hard into her hips, lifting and moving her body in a rhythm their very own. “Not that it doesn’t sound like an awesome way to spend the day, mind you, but kind of not an option right now.”

His expression shutters. “I suppose you are correct.”

Slowly, Darcy eases to her feet. She feels like a newborn colt, shaky and unsure, and she can hear Sam moving away from the far wall, coming a few steps further into the room to make sure she isn’t going to collapse.

“How much longer?” Darcy asks, lifting her palm up, mirroring where his palm hadn’t quite touched the barrier before. Loki lifts his own, brings it to the other side so that if the magic weren’t between them, they’d be only a breath apart. “Til this whole house arrest thing is done?”

“Six months,” Loki murmurs. “Eternity.”

“Halfway through, though,” Darcy points out. “It’s been an eternity already.”

He chuckles, darkly. “Indeed.”

They stand there, untouching, just _looking_ into one another’s eyes for an unmeasured amount of time. Darcy’s muscles begin to tremble but she’s unwilling to drop her hand, to turn away from Loki. She studies every line of his face, the new scar thin and silver curving over his cheekbone, taking in the tension and weariness in the shadows of him, the tilt of his chin, the curl of his lips. She aches to smooth the stress from his face, to bury her fingers in the taut muscles in his shoulders, and ease the knots lining his spine. She inhales and imagines that she can scent him like a dog, the fresh mint of the Asgardian hair cleansers, the leather and smoke of him, his magic like emerald sparks, ozone and bracing evergreen cold, winding between them.

Loki opens his mouth to speak but is cut off when the lights above them suddenly stutter hard, orange and red, and a sharp burst of staccato noise blats above them.

“Loki, man, sorry to break this up but we’ve gotta assemble,” Sam calls across the room, his phone already out and fingers flying across the front. “Thor’s on his way.”

Darcy drops her hand just as Thor bursts in from a hidden doorway – likely the stairs – and stutters to a stop when he sees Darcy at the edge of the apartment. He grins – a flash and gone – and then walks to the edge of the golden wall. “Ten seconds, brother, and then we must away,” he warns Loki, slapping his palm to the magic.

The wall cuts out and before Darcy can blink Loki has her in his arms, his lips on hers, cradling her face between one huge, warm hand, the other curling around her waist and lifting her up, pressed flush against him. Darcy gasps against his mouth, tears flowing, and as she tastes the salt, knows that Loki is weeping too.

Ten seconds are a blink and an eternity, and when Thor clears his throat and Loki reluctantly eases Darcy to her feet, she can barely stand. Loki steadies her and rests his forehead against hers.

“I will come back to you,” he promises and all Darcy can do is nod as Thor claps Loki on the shoulder and the thin green tunic and black pants shimmer and change into his battle armor, helm included.

“Hey, horns?” Darcy asks as Thor takes Loki by the shoulders and visibly guides his brother away from her. Loki goes, but reluctantly. Both of them pause at her voice, half-turn, and she says, “Be careful out there?”

Loki swallows, smiles, and nods. “Always.”

“Bull, halfway to suicidal most fights, the idiot,” Sam mutters under his breath but Darcy can tell that she wasn’t meant to hear the rebuttal and keeps her face serene and calm. A moment later and the three of them are gone, Sam to the elevator and Loki and Thor to the stairs.

The apartment is stunningly silent with them gone.

Still, the golden wall has gone silver and the only lights still lit are those on the guardian’s side. Darcy knows that the right thing to do would be to go back upstairs, to find her room, to rest and recuperate as she’s been directed by the medical staff, but she can’t make herself go.

Instead, like smoke she drifts across the edge of the wall, half expecting it to zap her, but nothing happens. The magic allows her to pass as easily as if the wall weren’t there at all, and now that Darcy is on the other side, she feels an immense throb of affection for Tony Stark and his ridiculous generosity.

Loki’s cage, far from what it was before, is as comfortable as most homes. There is a long, black leather couch set with a green woolen throw blanket and overstuffed, plush pillows tucked into the corners. A flat screen hangs on the wall, bracketed on both sides with floor-to-ceiling bookcases stuffed full of all kinds of books – novels and biographies, scientific journals and what looks to be a series of ancient Asgardian tomes, nonfiction and manuals and fantasy and science fiction. Darcy’s finger idly brushes over _IT_ and _War and Peace_ and _The Prince_ and a battered box set of _The Boxcar Children_. A green trunk with silver metal corners acts as a coffee table and _A Brief History of Time_ sits haphazardly in the center, a playing card as a bookmark lodged somewhere in the middle.

She thinks of stopping here, before she’s really begun to rummage and explore. It’d be polite to stop here, to wait for him to return, or just to leave and go see if Pepper or Jane are upstairs, maybe one of the others.

Instead, she drifts on. There is no dining room – Loki must on the couch and the kitchen is small, but efficient. There is a microwave hanging over the convection stovetop, an oven she spends a few minutes drooling over, a quality stainless steel fridge across from a small dishwasher, a couple counters, some cabinets, and a pantry behind a tall, thin frosted glass door. It’s all herringbone tile and black stone counters and lit by hidden rope LEDs like in her room upstairs. There are no decorations on the walls, just as in the living room.

The bathroom is the same. A wetroom with a tub long enough for Loki to stretch out his legs, a rainfall showerhead above it, a small toilet and vanity and mirror, all lit from above with the same low LED lights, still in ebony stone and herringbone tile, an alcove cut into the wall beside the tub, a small collection of familiar Asgardian jars tucked into the niche.

There’s not much else to the apartment. Darcy sticks her head into a small, cramped study. More overflowing bookcases, a desk so small she wonders if Loki uses it at all, the top piled with odds and ends she vaguely recognizes from her time spent in the rooms Frigga had magicked up for Loki during his last punishment here, when his soul had to escape the prison or die from Daniel Blackwood’s torture.

He’d developed the weapon that killed him in those rooms. Frowning, Darcy shut the study door with a final, hard click.

The final room was his bedroom. Darcy hesitates in the doorway, but in the end she can’t resist. The door opens smoothly with the barest touch and the lights along the ceiling come up automatically, lighting the room with the faintest of warm glows. There is his bed, larger than a king-size, neatly made with what looks to be his pillows and blankets from Asgard, if she remembers those emerald and black swirls correctly. There are two small black tables bracketing his bedside, a pillow-top trunk at the foot of his bed, a small walk-in closet with the door hanging open, a set of drawers, and an overstuffed lounger in the corner, a tall reading lamp nestled behind it. It is a comfortable room.

The only decoration in the entire apartment sits on Loki’s bedside table: a silver framed picture. Darcy reaches out for it with trembling fingers, picks up the frame, and looks down into her own smiling face.

Jane took this, ages ago, back in New Mexico, back before Thor and the Bifrost and Loki attempting to bend the world to his will. Darcy had normally been the one who took pictures back then, Jane wasn’t much for snapping shots, but this must have been one of the days shortly after she’d gotten her new phone, not too long before the hammer crash landed in the desert.

In the picture Darcy is sitting on the roof of the old car dealership. She is in profile; gazing out into the desert sunset, the faintest glimmers of starlight barely visible in the background. The last rays of light rest in her hair, picking out the red strands in a halo. She has on one of her old slouchy beanies grasped loosely in one hand, her glasses slid down her nose, and a small smile curving the corners of her mouth. Her neck is a long, pale line vanishing into her old favorite sweater, a verdant green-black cashmere thing she’d picked up for ten bucks at the Salvation Army two blocks from the Culver campus four weeks before her first foray into the chill of desert nights.

“Oh Loki,” Darcy whispers, taking in the tarnishing along the sides of the silver frame. How often did he hold this picture - this moment caught in the mythical _before_ time, _before_ land, before Thor, before Loki, before love – and look on it? _Thousands of times,_ Hel whispers _. Sometimes he falls asleep with it in his arms_.

“Shut up,” Darcy says aloud but there’s no heat in it. What’s done is done and she can’t take it back. Darcy sighs and returns the picture to its home on the bedside table. “Yep, I’m an idiot.”

The room has no answer. Darcy is tired now. Bone weary. She climbs slowly beneath Loki’s covers just as she did before, when he was dead, sleeping in Helheim, and lost to her. His pillows are just as plush, his sheets are just as soft. She snuggles down, rests her head on one pillow and chooses the one that smells of Loki the strongest to cuddle.

She doesn’t sleep, though. Not the sleep of before, filled with walking and dreams and wandering between the layers of reality, spying and prying, cut off and abandoned and having to resort to a shade’s shape to fit into the world. Instead, Darcy dozes gratefully, slipping into the lightest of sleeps, the gentlest of hazes. Hours pass as seconds. Darcy is warm and content and surrounded with the smell of her love. She has what she needs, there’s no urge to wander. She is where she wants to be, there’s no need to pry.

 


	12. Chapter 12

 

 

At some point the bed dips down beside her and Darcy makes a sleepy noise. A large, warm hand curves over the back of her skull, smoothing her hair down.

“Steven has cleared it with Hill. One night and one day alone,” she hears Thor rumble. “I will come for her at sunset tomorrow, unless there’s need for another assemble call. None of us will interrupt your reunion until then. They… we… are trusting you to remain within your quarters. Then six more months, as agreed.”

“Thank you,” Loki says, voice soft and full.

“Thank Sam and Wanda,” Thor replies and she can hear the smile in his voice. “They spoke most eloquently in your defense to Hill and the Council. There apparently was a great deal of shouting.”

Loki snorts and Darcy feels his arm slide across her stomach, drawing her closer, his warm-and-cold breath huffing against the back of her neck. “I do not deserve any of you. I do not deserve _this_.”

“Rest, brother,” Thor says, sidestepping the issue of what Loki did or did not deserve. “If she falls ill and you cannot manage it, notify FRIDAY and Banner shall come. Otherwise, I wish you good luck.”

He laughs, but it isn’t the bitter, broken thing Darcy had expected. Loki’s laugh is soft, and warm, and a little disbelieving. “Thank you, Thor. I believe I shall need it.”

Thor leaves; there is a sharp spark of magic that Darcy can feel even from the bedroom, and she knows that the golden wall has gone back up, essentially trapping her in here with Loki until Thor returns. Not that she minds. Even with the discussion looming over them that is going to have to happen to fully clear the air, she is with Loki at last, and all she can think of is spending all twenty-four of those hours in his arms.

Loki mumbles something into her shoulder and though Darcy can’t make it out the lights in his room dim. Loki pulls her more snugly against him, her back to his chest, their hips spooned together, and he just breathes. In and out, out and in, body settling around her, and Darcy knows that he is inhaling her scent as she took in his, letting himself sink into the feel of her in his arms, simply _being_.

“You haven’t been eating enough,” Darcy says into the quiet and can feel the curve of his smile against the back of her neck. “You’re like a scarecrow, dude. I looked in that pantry and your fridge. You’ve got plenty of blueberries. What gives?”

His shoulders shake and his laugh is a rumble against her back as he rubs his nose against the nape of her neck. “Mayhaps I was saving them to share with you, minx.”

“Yeah, no. Wanda ratted you out,” Darcy rebutted, idly stroking the tips over her fingers over his knuckles. “She said they basically have to force feed you most days. Try again, Silvertongue.”

His wrist twists beneath her hand and his fingers curl through hers, their palms kissing lightly. “Should you wish to test my silver tongue, my love, my Darcy, all you had to do was but ask.”

“No fair using sexy-times against me,” Darcy protests as Loki pulls away and leans over, his hair falling around their faces. His lips are but a breath away from hers, his eyes barely visible in the thin glimmer of light. “Serious dry spell over here, Loki.”

“Say it again,” he urges.

Darcy smirks. “Beg me.”

Startled, Loki’s eyes flick down to her lips and back up to her eyes before he smiles, slow and seductive. “Please, Darcy. Please, my love. Say it again.”

“Loki,” she breathes. “Loki. Loki. Loki. Loki, my love. I’ve missed you.”

His mouth plummets down on hers, fierce and needy, and Darcy twists in his arms to accommodate him, so that they’re flush together. He’s over her in an instant, long lean thighs on either side of hers, supporting himself with one arm while the other strokes her cheek, her jaw, running nimble fingertips down the length of her neck and span of her collarbones. The backs of Loki’s fingers wander further, stroking down the tender side of her breast through the thin cotton of her nightshirt and Darcy gasps into his mouth, already wet and needy and careless if he knows it.

When those talented fingers skim across her stomach, Darcy stills and so does he. Then he presses the flat of his palm over her navel.

“I did not know,” he murmurs, lips barely brushing hers as he speaks. His voice is tight and choked, low with self-recrimination. “If I did… I never would have allowed us to be separated or you to be-“

“Kind of hard for you to know when I didn’t even know,” Darcy points out, stroking gentle fingers through his hair, gathering some at the nape of his neck and tugging lightly as he likes. “It takes us mortals like a month and a half to realize we’re knocked up, Loki. We were together in the flesh like a day or two before we Bifrosted back down to Earth. Not nearly enough time to know.”

“Fionnula knew,” Loki pointed out, unwilling to cease the self-flagellation.

“With _magic_ ,” Darcy counters.

Her point sticks but Loki is unwilling to cede just yet. “I have magic,” he mumbles.

“Not magic geared specifically toward hearth and home and babies and bullshit,” Darcy sighs. “That is Brigid’s whole deal, right? Taking care of the homestead? This wasn’t on _you_ , Loki. Seriously. Not what happened to me, not what I _let_ happen to me, or what I agreed to, and certainly not the… not the miscarriage. Not me being stuck in the ass end of nowhere. None of it.”

He shakes his head. “I should have checked up on you more. I was able to project a double beneath Hill’s nose to see you, I should have managed it more than just the once.”

“Okay, yeah, that was on you, but you know what? Right now, I don’t care.” Darcy tugs his hair again, relishing the way his eyes flutter closed and she can feel how much he enjoys it nudge against her inner thigh. “Loki. I know we need to have this hard heart-to-heart, okay? This is that thing that’s gonna happen. But it doesn’t have to happen this second. In this bed. When you’ve finally got me where we’ve both wanted to be for forever.” She rolls her hips beneath him and Loki hisses across his teeth.

Darcy leans up, brushes her lips against the shell of his ear, and whispers, “You’ve got the woman you love in your bed after six long, long months, Trickster. Now do you have any idea what you’re gonna do about it?”

 

 

Loki, as it turns out, has many, many ideas indeed.

 

 

It is a lovely twenty-four hours. Somewhere after round three, when Darcy is lazy and sated and fairly sure that if Loki didn’t have healing magic that she wouldn’t be able to walk again for a week, Loki lifts her and carries her into his sleek bathroom. He starts the warm water and settles her in the tub, procuring creamy-scented bath salts from his Asgardian stash and filling the bath nearly to the brim with Darcy in it. He washes her hair tenderly, finger-combing out the sweaty, salt-soaked tangles, and massages her shoulders and back. Darcy feels the anxiety and tension of the last six months slowly melt away with each tender ministration, and when the water has cooled, and Loki’s brought her to completion twice more with a hand beneath the surface, small ripples lapping at his wrist, Darcy begins to weep.

The water swirls away and Loki lifts her to his bare chest, wrapping her in thick, fluffy towels, cradling her closely and rocking her. The steam of the bath clouds the small room, and all is Loki’s heartbeat, and his scent, and the warmth, and his lips brushing feather-light kisses against her temples, fingers combing through her hair.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers when she’s wrung empty and Loki says nothing but licks the last remaining tears from the corner of her eyes, and nuzzles her pulse point, and gently strokes her hair with another plush towel until it is fluffy and dry.

He carries her like a bride to the couch, setting aside his book and flicking open the trunk to reveal heavy velvet blankets lined in satin, fleece throws edged in flannel, and a couple throw pillows in Slytherin black and silver and green.

“Harry Potter? Seriously?” Darcy prods the pillow when he sets it in her lap along with what looks to be the warmest blanket. “That’s a little on the nose, isn’t it?”

“When I was given to his care Stark thought it amusing to decorate my quarters thusly,” Loki admits, smiling and closing the trunk. “I discarded most of the embellishments but the pillows are quite comfortable.”

Darcy runs one finger over the black and green tasseled corner. “They’re cute.”

“Yes. I read the series and found it ‘cute’ as well. Now, to change the subject to one more pressing, I’ve grown somewhat adept cooking at Midguardian food,” Loki says, kneeling at her side. “Not, perhaps, adept enough compared to the rest of you, but I can make - Clint calls it ‘college cuisine’? - with a fair amount of accuracy and skill. Does this sound appealing? Or we can see if FRIDAY is willing to send down takeout, though I do not know who would be willing to deliver it seeing as Thor is likely camped in the upstairs entryway blocking any and all who would dare bother us.”

“Is it disturbing that I can totally picture that? Anyway, I can cook, you know. You already massaged me and gave me that awesome bath. You’re not here to serve me,” Darcy says and is touched when Loki shakes his head emphatically.

“No,” he says. “You have been through too much as of late, you are too thin, and though you hide it well we both know that you are still ill. I should not have… in your delicate state, I should have held myself back, but I am ever selfish when it comes to your touch.” He holds up one hand at Darcy’s sputtered protest. “Darcy, please. Let me take care of you. Please.”

“One, there was no unwanted debauching here. This was a mutual debauchery, thank you very much. Two, the whole ‘you’re too thin thing’ is my line,” Darcy grumbles. “You never did answer me why you haven’t been eating.”

“I did not hunger,” Loki says shortly.

“Uh huh, you were totally on a mini hunger strike for real this time, weren’t you? I knew I never should have told you that was a thing that exists.”

“No. That would be preposterous.” He rises, studiously not looking at her. “So. Macaroni and cheese, then? Or do you prefer that I heat a frozen pizza? Or ramen? Sam has taught me that should you drop a raw egg in the noodles or melt a spoonful of peanut butter in the broth it makes a quite a filling repast when one doesn’t wish to bother with a full meal.”

“Okay, fine, have it your way. Yeah, frozen pizza sounds good. Do you have extra shredded cheese to bulk it out? Adding your own makes it like twice as good.”

“And a jar of Tuscan spices for the top,” Loki agrees easily. “I find your Midguardian convenience foods quite amusing, honestly. And the others seem to delight in sharing my solitary meals and follow my endeavors in the kitchen avidly. Wanda seems especially pleased that I intend to begin to explore baking soon.”

“I bet. Thor used to burn the pop tarts half the time no matter how he tried, they probably thought you’d be the same way,” Darcy laughs, remembering the mournful but hopeful expression Thor would have when displaying yet another platter full of blackened breakfast pastries for Jane. “Did he ever get a hang of the toaster?”

Loki vanishes down the hall, calling out, “He appears to have, yes. His level of cooking skill at this point rivals my own, though I have surpassed him in recent weeks once I began experimenting with pasta and the various sauces.” He returns a moment later with one of his button-up shirts in hand and lays it across Darcy’s lap.

“We’ll have you on _Chopped_ in no time,” Darcy chuckles and dons the shirt, amused as how Loki licks his lips and his eyes darken as she does up the middle three buttons and fluffs her hair around her shoulders. He leans forward, brushing his lips across hers and Darcy hums appreciation.

“Ready for round four? Or is it five? Jesus, I love the alien-god stamina and refractory period.”

He chuckles and draws back, running one finger along the line of her jaw, smiling as her eyes flutter closed and she leans against him like a cat. “No, my love, you must first eat. Then sleep. You are still weak.”

“Bullshit,” Darcy complains as he tucks the blanket around her and settles the throw pillow behind her head. “I’m a big girl. I can totally… totally go again.” She scowls as a giant yawn cuts the sentence in half, belying her claim.

“As you wish, Darcy,” Loki says, eyes twinkling, humoring her. “But first, food.”

“Fine, fine,” she acquiesces with poor grace. “Can I at least have the remote?”

His brows draw together and he taps his chin thoughtfully. “Um… yes. Clint was the last guest I had who watched television with me so it is – err, here? - I believe?” He then proceeds to reach past Darcy and into the corner of the couch, digging between the cushions for the remote. Darcy laughs aloud and nips at his neck and Loki mock-growls at her, muttering about insufferable mortal wenches before coming up with the remote, triumphant.

“My lady,” he says, offering it to her.

“My hero!” Darcy makes gimme-hands at him and, laughing aloud, he drops the rectangle in her lap. Darcy flips the TV on and loads up Netflix, amused to see that Thor, Bucky, Clint, and Banner all have profiles on Loki’s account. Curiously, she picks Banner’s account and is thoroughly unsurprised to see it full of documentaries, Bob Ross, and art house movies. What does surprise her, however, is that they were last watching _That 70’s Show_ together, and were halfway through the third episode of _Freaks and Geeks_. Shrugging and smiling, Darcy flips over and peruses the other profiles. Tony’s is all “ _How Stuff is Made_ ” and science shows along with a few scattered blockbusters; Clint’s is primarily action and A-list horror movies with a few reality shows thrown in for flavor; Bucky’s is mostly musicals, westerns, and a smattering of films that had to be on that pop-culture catch-up list that he and Steve shared; and Thor’s is, unsurprisingly, nothing but animated movies, comedies, _Vikings_ and _The Walking Dead_.

“Do I even want to know what Loki watches when he’s alone?” Darcy muses to herself, finally hovering over the last profile. When it loads, her eyebrows lift. “Stand up comedians?”

Loki has a few popular shows on his list, a few more recent movies, but in general his list is page after page of stand-up comedians and comedy specials.

“I don’t watch much television in general, mostly with those who have the guarding of me that shift,” Loki explains, coming up behind the couch and resting his forearms on the edge, leaning over so that their faces aren’t far apart. “And I watch even less by myself, but when I do, I find it’s because I’m melancholy. Without you by my side, this seems to be an adequate way of cheering myself up.”

Touched, Darcy reaches up and strokes his cheek, a little thrill going through her when his eyes drift closed and he smiles against her palm, brushing a single, soft kiss against her skin. “Who’s your favorite?”

“I enjoy most of them save for the most profane and vulgar,” Loki admits, twisting toward the kitchen as the oven beeps twice. “But I find the clever, blunt ones to be those that I seek out more often than not. Robin Williams, for example. Patton Oswalt. Oh, there, I meant to sit down with the Kathleen Madigan special soon. Once I’ve put the pizza in will you watch it with me?”

Warmed to her toes at the suggestion, Darcy nods. There are a few minutes of shuffling and one low curse from the kitchen before he’s back, grinning ear to ear. Darcy shifts over so that Loki can leap over the back of the couch and settle in the corner. Once he’s situated, she curls into his side and rests her head on his shoulder, starting up the special with a sigh of contentment.

They pause when the timer chirps. Darcy tries to get up to pour them drinks but Loki insists that she remain on the couch as he cuts the pizza and bustles to and fro between the couch and the kitchen, sitting down and then hopping back up every few seconds until they’ve got napkins and plates, cups of iced tea and an assortment of spices to sprinkle on top. Darcy wants to laugh at how solicitous he’s being, but at the same time she’s touched beyond words at his tender care and consideration. No one has ever done this for her; Darcy frequently has done this for others, but as far back as she searches, she can’t think of a single person who’s spent so much time and energy thinking of her needs and catering to them.

 _Bran_ , whispers Hel, the traitor, in her mind. It is the first time she’s spoken since Darcy has laid eyes on Loki after her week of bound sleep. _Fionnula. They both were courteous of you in your illnesses and wandering. It is simply that you do not remember_.

 _Shut it_ , Darcy tells her, mentally turning her back on the goddess. She has a measly twenty-four hours with Loki and she’ll be damned if she’s dealing with a dour death deity during her only day with him. Instead of the fury she expects, all Darcy receives in reply from Hel is cool bemusement, the mental equivalent of a mother patting her daughter on the head and going, “Yes, yes, whatever you say, dear.”

Loki settles down on the couch with her again, steaming pizza on his plate, and then frowns. “Darcy?”

“Hmm?” Darcy takes her own plate and picks up her slice. There are olives and pepperoni and so much melted, bubbling cheese it takes all she has not to squee a little when she brings the pizza to her lips. Cooking hot food in Scotland had been such a hassle, so the last hot meal she can really remember is the soup Loki fixed for her during his first visit. Mostly she’d subsisted on sandwiches and protein bars, taking care to down handfuls of vitamins when she could remember or put one foot in front of the other.

“Darcy… is Hel here?”

“Why do you- shit.” Darcy scowls at her wrist, looking at the lace twisting across her old, thin scars. “Damn it, come on!”

Loki sets down his plate, watching her closely. “Is she speaking with you now? Do I need to call FRIDAY?”

“No!” Darcy scowls at her wrist, willing the black to recede. It does, but takes several seconds to fade.

“Did… did I do something wrong?” Loki swallows hard and Darcy can tell the effort it takes for his eyes not to stare at her wrist, at the swirls of pale silver curling around her neck like a scarification choker.

“No! No, baby, no,” Darcy soothes, setting her own plate aside and taking both Loki’s cold hands in her own. “Loki, she was just reminding me of something I don’t remember. I didn’t remember. When I was sick.”

“Does she do that often?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes. She kind of comes and goes as she pleases.” Darcy shrugs, suddenly uncomfortable and no longer famished. She picks up her iced tea, takes a sip, and grimaces. It is unsweetened and she is reminded of bitter Fionnula’s forgetting draught, how she’d wasted away a month of her life caught in dreams and despair.

Loki tugs Darcy into his lap and she goes willingly and with not a little desperation. She’s uncertain as to how much time they have left; all Darcy knows is that the thought of being without his touch for another six months sets up a fierce ache inside.

Always observant, Loki curls her tighter in his arms and presses a soft kiss just beneath her earlobe. “Don’t fret, love. Borrowing trouble will eat away at the time we have remaining together.”

“This sucks,” Darcy complains. “You made this deal without even _talking_ to me and now we can’t be near each other for _another_ six months? How is that fair?”

“I know, my love, I know. We should have discussed it, but at the time it felt as if my hands were tied. And… and I felt that I owed it to Midgard to prove myself, my worth, in earnest for once. No tricks, no lies, no mischief. If I’m to remain here, with you, then my actions and intentions must be beyond doubt and reproach. I will not have you on the run with me. A year seemed a paltry sum to prove my intent, with you safely away.”

“Yeah, for _you_ ,” Darcy grumbles, but she understands his reasoning, for all that she doesn’t agree with it. “You have thousands of years ahead of you. I’m not exactly an immortal space-alien-goddess so excuse me, but I’m a little selfish of what time I’ve got with you, seeing as a year isn’t exactly nothing to humans. Hell, Loki, Thor’s granddad Bor was kicking around before Midgardian written civilization, not to mention how far along we were when Odin was born, or even you and Thor.”

Loki’s arms tighten minutely around her and the action is so small that Darcy doesn’t realize at first that he is suddenly shaking.

“Loki?”

“You are going to die. You. Are going to die.”

Darcy’s heart stutters in her chest at the soft, bleak whisper. “Well, yeah. I’m human, remember? Sort of comes with the territory.”

“Yes, yes. It’s just that…” he swallows convulsively, turns his face away to stare at the wall, not meeting her gaze, his thumb stroking the back of her wrist in slow, firm circles, “before, it was always outside forces that threatened you. The damage wrought by my folly. Hel’s other supplicants. Desperate men. Others. Hel herself. It’s part of why I was so complacent when I learned that they’d chosen to keep you so far away from me, in the middle of nowhere. What could harm you where few dared to tread? I thought you to be safe even without me to guard you.”

Darcy decides that reiterating her current hellish situation would do neither of them any favors, and instead rubs her cheek against his shoulder, waiting.

“But even if I keep you safe from all outside forces for the rest of your natural life,” Loki whispers, “even then, you’re right… we have so little time together. It is not unknown for the Æsir to live five thousand years or more and unless a Jötunn falls in battle, they… we… are live just as long, if not longer. Humans… how long _do_ you have, Darcy? I can’t recall. I know it is a paltry amount of years. Nothing.” He looks panicked at that, blood draining from his face until he is paper-white, the shadows beneath his eyes purple-black and haunting.

“Loki-“

“ _Tell_ me, Darcy! My mind whispers an infinitesimal amount but the exact years escape me. Tell me.”

Darcy sighs and drops her chin to her chest. She wants to fight this manic energy, to push back, but she knows that it won’t do any good. “If we’re lucky, the oldest humans can get is a hundred, Loki, a hundred and five at most. Most people start dropping between seventy and eighty, though. Making a hundred or more is really, really rare.”

“A hundred? A HUNDRED?! That’s… that’s it? I’ve wasted a hundred years perfecting a tree of magic, in studying Vanir history, in training with my daggers.”

He chokes and Darcy raises her head, takes Loki’s face between her palms, forcing him to look at her. His eyes are blown wide in panic, the irises nearly swallowing the green, and his breath is coming in short, harsh gasps. “Loki, every second I have with you is a gift.” She angles him down so that she can brush a kiss across his lips. He tastes like pizza and tea and she smiles against his mouth. “I was wrong to bring that up. Don’t brood on all the years we won’t have together. Be grateful for the time we have already had and that we are together right now.”

“Fifty to one,” he whispers against her lips and Darcy sighs, knowing that he isn’t hearing her. He might be listening but it isn’t sinking in. “Every fifty years I spend is like a single year for you, isn’t it? Mayhap less.”

“I guess,” Darcy shrugs, uncomfortable now. “I guess that might help explain why Jane and Thor…” she cuts that thought off sharply, unwilling to even _hint_ about Thor and Jane’s break up to Loki while he’s in this state. He’s already gotten melodramatic about protecting her and doing what he thought was best for her without ever consulting her about it; Darcy wouldn’t put it past Loki to dump her on the spot to ‘protect’ her.

“Marry me.”

Darcy blinks. “What?”  
     “Darcy, you are, what twenty-three? Twenty-five? A quarter of your life is gone already.”

“Yeah? But that’s-“

“I know there is no romance in this and I swear to you I shall do… I shall provide that moment when I am free to… to plan and bend the knee properly.” He flaps a hand in the direction of the television. “Clint and I watched _The Notebook_ once. He purges those movies from his list quickly after we watch them but the lessons stick. I know romance is important to Midgardians. And I know this conversation is practical and not romantic but-“

“Whoa, whoa, Loki, slow down-“

“Darcy.” Loki sits up straighter, taking her face in his hands and brushes kiss after kiss across her lips until Darcy is dizzy from lack of air and her heart is thudding rapidly against her ribs. “You are the most precious person to me in this entire universe. In all of my existence.”

“You can’t marry someone just because you’re afraid that you’re going to lose them, Loki,” Darcy sighs, bemused. “And you’re my person too, you know.”

“I am not _afraid_ that I am going to lose you, Darcy, I _am_ going to lose you.” Loki brushes his thumb across her lower lip, burning eyes not leaving hers. “And if I am to lose you in eighty years then I intend to fiercely enjoy every damn second of what little time we have left.”

Holy shit, he’d been listening after all.

“Are you serious?”

“What is that Midgardian saying? ‘As a heart attack’? I would have you be my wife, Darcy Lewis of Midgard. I would that you wait until the day of my freedom then I shall bend the knee, present you with a ring, and take you forthwith to the administrator of binding. Your clerics or priests, whomever and whatever you desire.”

“You’re serious.” Darcy presses a hand over her mouth.

Loki nodded once, boyish but intent, his hair sliding over one eye and expression seeking, cautious but hopeful. Gone is the fear of rejection. He trusts her to assent in this. “If you will have me, yes, I am serious.” His long fingers curl around her wrists, gently tracing the blue veins beneath her thin skin. “I had never thought that something would move so fast for me. Thor was ever the one to rush in. But with you… there is no fear, only the desire to do this completely and well, to give you every experience that you deserve and to experience every permutation of a life with you. Children, should you wish them, a home to return to outside this tower, if that is what you seek.” He draws her close, hugs her tightly. “When this cell wall falls for good I will never let them separate us again.”

“Big words,” Darcy says, dazed, but her heart thrills at the life he is laying out. “I never figured you for a suburban white-picket-fence, two-point-five-kids and a dog kind of guy.”

“If this is the life you wish, you shall have it,” he swears. “If you want to travel the globe, or the realms, or all of it, or none of it… just Darcy, consider me your _djinn_. You agree to this, to our union formalized, and your wish is my command.”

“And you said you’re not romantic,” Darcy jokes weakly but it falls flat. She smoothes his hair off his face, searches his face closely. There is none of the panic that had flitted across his features before. Now he is calm, and smiling, eyes twinkling. Loki looks _excited_. God, she loves this man. This complicated, dramatic, brooding, handsome, ridiculous man.

“Bend the knee, Friggason,” Darcy whispers, and he drops to the floor beside the couch in an instant. Even kneeling, Loki is so large and she is so petite, that he is still slightly taller than Darcy, looking down on her. She holds out a hand and smiles at him. “Ask again.”

His grin is a thing of beauty, wide and beaming, lighting his entire face. Loki takes her palm and cradles it in his hand, turning her hand over and pressing a sweet kiss in the cup of her palm, before clasping his hand between both of his and staring deeply into her eyes.

“Darcy Lewis, of Midgard, I love you with all my heart and soul, with every weft and weave of the magic in my blood, with every fiber of my being. Nothing more would make me happier than to know that you would forever be mine and I yours. Will you consent to be my wife?”

“Yes,” Darcy says simply, leaning forward and pressing a brief, sweet kiss to Loki’s smiling lips.

He whoops like a boy and yanks her close. Darcy laughs despite herself, crushed against his chest, and Loki is crying and laughing and whooping and falling to pieces around her and Darcy falls right along with him, their heady glee fizzling along her nerves, alighting the magic sleeping deeply inside, sending up small firework sparks to hum beneath her skin.

Loki kisses her then, dragging her down onto the couch and they go for round four right then, him stripping his button-up shirt off her before Darcy can even register his nimble, talented fingers on the first button. He’s naked a moment later and they laugh their way through the union, kissing like fumbling, giddy teenagers, hands and teeth and lips everywhere. Loki whispers magic against her mound, healing the faintly lingering soreness from their previous coupling, before using lips and fingers to send her over the edge three more times. Darcy’s sobbing for him after the third, impatiently dragging him up her body, and he settles between her legs, so ready for her that once he slides inside, Loki only pumps deeply a half dozen times before he too unravels, gasping and choking her name in the curve of her neck and shoulder.

They lay panting and curled close on the couch when Loki carefully turns them so Darcy is cradled across his chest, and pulls the throw blanket over her back, cocooning them beneath the plush warmth.

“Mine,” Darcy mutters into his chest and feels Loki’s answering rumbling chuckle.

“Yours,” he agrees, thumbing damp wisps of her hair off her temples. Their fingers intertwine and Loki rubs his thumb along her left ring finger, where there still linger a few small callouses left from the broken curls of the projection rings his mother had gifted them. Beneath those, even still, the remains faintest silvery scar where he’d bitten down and sucked out the first of Hel’s poison. Loki has a similar scar on his own left ring finger; his own ring is missing.

“I lost Frigga’s ring,” Darcy admits sadly, running her thumb against the side of his hand. “I’m sorry.”

Loki stiffens and she fears that he is going to be angry with her when a slow, quiet smile curls across his lips. “Wait here,” he demands, slipping out from beneath her and ignoring Darcy’s mumbled complaint. He’s back a minute later and takes her hand in his, sliding a familiar band on her scarred finger. “You were saying?”

“My ring?” Darcy sits up, the blanket puddling around her hips. “You found my ring!”

“I mended it and cleaned it and… I added a setting and two stones,” he pointed out, pressing a kiss to her temple. “I hope it is a satisfactory symbol for our promised union for now. I can get you one more worthy of you after-”

“No!” Darcy yanks her hand away, curling it protectively between her breasts. “Don’t you dare! This is perfect!”

Loki chuckles. “Hill has mine currently, but I think I can bend Thor’s ear and have it returned.”

“Does the magic still work?” Darcy looked closely at the ring. It had been mended and shined, and now sported an diminutive sapphire and a twin emerald side by side, curled together in a twisted ouroboros nestled among the leaves and branches.

“The projections? No. Mother allowed that safe space to falter. But there is still magic inherent in the metal of the ring itself, wound through the warp and weft of the spirals, just there.” He prods the edges, indicating curls like opening leaves on new branches. “It set off the magical detectors they used when they first arranged this place for me. Even after it was explained that it was simply a means for my mental safety while I was tortured by Blackwood and held no real power, Hill still thought I’d use it to escape.”

“Either way, thank you,” Darcy said, as Loki eases back onto the couch and clasps her to his chest once more, reclining them both and tugging the blanket from around her hips around them once more.

“Rest now, my heart.” Loki kisses her once, chastely, and rubs his nose against hers as Darcy’s eyes flutter closed, exhaustion and contentment pulling her down into the depths of sleep. “Rest.”

When she sleeps, it is blessedly dreamless and still.

 


	13. Chapter 13

 

They rouse eventually, eat, make love a final time, wash, and rest again. Darcy savors every moment, pushing back all thoughts of Loki’s remaining incarceration to the back of her brain whenever the dismay surfaces. Hel is blessedly quiet for the rest of their visit and it is not until Thor and Stark return, Wanda and Sam at their backs, that Darcy begins to wonder why the goddess of death has been so accommodating.

“Loki. Darcy.” Thor stands outside the golden wall, smiling sadly. “It is time.”

Darcy wraps her arms around Loki’s waist and he curls her close into his embrace, pressing a sweet kiss to her forehead, whispering, “It is a mere six months. We will still see one another through the wall in the meantime, and when this is over we will never be parted again.”

“Six months,” Darcy agrees, a tear slipping down her cheek. Loki thumbs it away. “I love you.”

“And I, you.” He taps the ring on her finger once, smirks, and steps back.

Darcy steps away, turns, and walks past the barrier to join Thor’s side. No one says a word, but Stark spots her ring immediately, eyes narrowing.

“Loki, Darcy’s gotta go up to medical now,” Sam says slowly, placating, holding his hands up as if Loki were a wild animal. “They have to run some more tests, make sure she’s still healing okay after the fire and the week she spent sleeping.”

“I trust you,” Loki sighs, leaning a hip against his couch and crossing his arms across his chest, smirking at them. “You needn’t fear I shall take her care amiss. I fully intend to finish my penitence as agreed.”

“Yeah, well, it’s my turn to Bambi-sit, Reindeer Games,” Stark says as Thor wraps a huge, warm arm around Darcy’s shoulder and guides her toward the elevator. “You wanna get out the chess set or are you feeling like some _Mythbusters_?”

“Afraid I’ll be lonely without you near, Stark?” Loki asks archly. “Of late you’ve been out there on your pad rather than within.”

“Eh, everyone needs a break now and then,” Stark says with a shrug, but his expression is cagey. “And if you’re not up to explosions or chess, well, maybe we can get an early start on the barrier schematics.”

“Back to work we go,” Loki drawls as the elevator opens and Darcy is escorted inside.

The ride is silent. Sam, Thor, and Wanda lean casually against the elevator walls. Wanda is thumbing through her phone, Thor is cracking his knuckles one at a time absently, and Sam is rubbing one hand through his hair as if testing the length.

Darcy breaks first. “Am I actually going to medical?”

“Yep,” Sam says. “But it’s mostly theatrical, to be honest. Hill’s insistence.”

“Gonna have to go to medical every time I see him?”

“Absolutely not,” Thor rumbles. “I would not allow such an invasion of your privacy. This alone is done against my better wishes.”

“It does send a ‘we still don’t trust you even with your beloved girlfriend’ message, doesn’t it?” Wanda muses. “No matter. We play along this time, Stark and Loki do a little bit of weekend engineering, and the next time we’re out in the field we-“ She cuts off, looking apologetically at Darcy.

“I’m aware I don’t have clearance for whatever shenanigans you all are getting up to out there in the great wide yonder,” Darcy says dryly, “It’s okay.”

“Yes, well…” Wanda drifts off, her eyes zeroing in on Darcy’s hand. “Wait. Was that there before? There’s magic in that ring.”

Thor and Sam both straightened but when Thor saw the ring he lit up. “Ah, he fixed it!”

“You knew he had it?” Darcy asked mildly. “I thought I lost it at the cottage.”

“You had, Darcy, while we were searching for you it was found amid the wreckage in the basement.” Thor patted her shoulder, smiling widely. “I worried that Loki would take it amiss that the rings you shared had been lost down there. I see that is not the case.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “Shared rings?”

“That’s the partner of the ring Hill took off Loki, isn’t it?” Wanda guessed. “The one with the defunct portal.”

“Yeah. Portals don’t work any more but he fixed mine up and repurposed it.” Darcy couldn’t help but stretch her hand out and wiggle her fingers with a grin. Thor missed the motion entirely, as it was a part of Earth culture he’d never encountered, but Wanda’s eyes went wide and a grin spread slowly across Sam’s face.

“Moves fast, huh?” he laughed.

Wanda fairly leapt at Darcy and yanked her into a close hug. “I’m so happy for you!”

Thor looked back and forth between them, confusion writ plainly on his face. “Darcy? Does the ring my brother returned to you merit such conduct? Is the loss of a treasured ring on Midgard-”

“They’re engaged, man,” Sam interrupts. “Your brother asked Darcy to marry him.”

Thor’s roar of approval shook the elevator and when the doors slid open on the common area Natasha, Steve, Bucky, and Clint were all crouched just outside the elevator, weapons drawn and tight, concerned looks on their faces. They spotted Thor, Darcy high and tight in his arms, laughing and whooping loudly, Sam and Wanda both grinning and pressed flush against the walls of the narrow box while the huge Asgardian danced around in circles with his slight friend clasped tightly to his chest.

“FRIENDS!” Thor declared. “WE MUST PLAN A FEAST!”

The four of them straightened. If Thor was talking feasts then there was an 70/30 percent chance that nothing truly awful was going down to ellicit that roar.

“Sure, big guy,” Clint said easily, sliding his arrow back into his quiver and folding up his bow. “What’s the occasion?”

“My shield sister Darcy shall join my family soon! Loki has asked for her hand!” Thor cried spinning her around once more.

“Thor, dude, if you don’t put me down I’m losing my pancakes all over your cloak,” Darcy protested, laughing but still half-serious. “And if you hug me any harder I’m going down the aisle in a full body cast.”

Natasha snorted and came to collect Darcy. “That kind of glee, you’d think _he_ was the one getting married,” she said, but she was smiling, a real, warm kind of smile that Darcy didn’t see often on the spy’s face.

“Who’s getting married?” came Jane’s voice as she entered the room.

Thor straightened, flushing. “Loki has asked Darcy to be his bride,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable and nervous.

The confusion on Jane’s face smoothed. “I see.” Her eyes flicked down to the ring on Darcy’s hand. “I’m taking it that you said yes?”

“There might have been some squealing and jumping up and down in there, but yeah, that about sums it up,” Darcy laughed. She wasn’t sure why she was suddenly so nervous, but every hero in the room except for Natasha suddenly had pressing business elsewhere, leaving Darcy alone with Thor and Jane.

“Jane, I know you find my brother unsuitable,” Thor began but Jane jerked her hand up, cutting him off.

“Some days,” she said slowly, “I think that mind control mojo has to be involved. Others… others I think it’s just plain old regular Stockholm Syndrome. You were basically in solitary confinement for six months and you were really, really sick. This whole thing with magic and gods and all that… I don’t know how deeply you’re involved it in, but I know everyone was trying to keep you out of it and you still somehow got sucked in.”

“Jane-“

“No,” she said sharply. “Look. Darcy, I love you. I know I haven’t been the best friend. I’ve tried, but keeping stuff from you… it ate at me. And SHIELD and the Avengers and… look, all I’m trying to say is that I didn’t use to be believe that it was real, what you and Loki felt for each other, okay? I thought it was some trick of his, some long con that he was pulling, and he was going to do even more damage to the world and the people I love. That he was going to damage _you_.”

“And now?”

Jane flicks a look at Thor, shrugs, and sighs. “I was wrong. He’s crazy about you. You walked into some kind of underworld for him – which, by the way, should so _not_ be scientifically possible but – no, wait, tangent, Foster. Focus. I love you, Darcy. I’m happy for you.” She held open her arms. “Now get your skinny ass over here, give me a hug, and then we’re ordering in. We need to feed you up to your prior banging bod, before the big day, right?”

Crying with relief, Darcy goes into Jane’s embrace and it is a little like coming home. Those stick-thin, surprisingly strong arms tighten around her and Darcy finds herself sobbing hard into Jane’s soft, flannel-clad shoulder, the familiar aroma of coffee and pastries and Jane’s strawberry shampoo enveloping her.

“She still needs to visit the doctors,” Thor points out gently but he is smiling over Jane’s shoulder and Darcy realizes suddenly that whatever problems Jane and Thor had, that her announcement was actually helping mend them.

“I’ll take her,” Natasha murmurs so that Darcy can barely catch it. “You stay here.”

“I missed you, Darce,” Jane whispers into her hair, squeezing tightly once more, before drawing back and wiping quick fingers beneath her own leaking eyes. “Wow. Okay. So, you go down to medical, do whatever, and we’ll put in an order with FRIDAY now. Hopefully it’ll be here right as you’re getting back and then we can talk girl-logistics or something.”

“I’d kill for some dim sum,” Darcy admits. “Is that place over on 57th still open?”

Jane claps her hands and for a moment it’s like they were back in the desert, standing outside the car-dealership-come-lab discussing what to eat on a Friday night before driving into the black and pointing shiny beeping things up at the stars. “Yeah, they are. FRIDAY? Let’s get some food in her.”

 


	14. Chapter 14

 

Medical was a farce and everyone knew it. The doctor knew it. The nurses knew it. Natasha knew it. They weighed her, poked and prodded her, took some blood and urine samples, and then let her go with yet another admonishment to start eating again or else.

“Well, it’s not like I didn’t eat with Loki,” Darcy grumbles, rubbing her inner elbow as Natasha finally whisked her away and back toward the elevators. “It’s just that we worked it off.”

“How are his culinary experiments going?” Natasha asks idly. “Did he end up trying for lasagna?”

“Pizza,” Darcy chuckled. “Neither one of us wanted to be separated for too long.”

“I can see that,” Natasha agreed. They stood in silence as the elevator slowly rose from the lobby.

“I’m not the only mouthpiece around here, am I?” Darcy asks suddenly when the elevator pauses on the 10th floor. “Finding out what was going on in Scotland put a bunch of pieces together for you guys, didn’t it?”

Natasha doesn’t say a word until the elevator pauses again on the 15th floor. “Loki tell you that?”

“Didn’t have to. It’s just bits and pieces I’ve been picking up since I got back, expressions Wanda or Thor have when they think I’m not looking. That thing Jane said earlier about gods and me being tangled up in it. I didn’t tell her, that’s for certain, and it didn’t sound like she was talking about Fionnula or Bran. It sounded like she was talking a lot closer to home.”

Natasha remains silent but Darcy can see that contemplative, amused gleam in the ex-assassin’s eyes that speaks of pride. Natasha, gorgeous spysassin, BAMF extraordinaire, is _proud_ of her, which means that Darcy is right on the money.

“So, since I don’t have clearance to wipe my own ass these days,” Darcy drawls slowly, “I know I’m not getting anything concrete out of you. But, I’ve read a book or two in my time, so I’m gonna take a shot in the dark. We know most of the Norse gods are actually aliens… so who are we talking here? Like Greco-Roman?”

More silence and Natasha very casually tugs the cuffs of her shirt straight. “Native American?” Darcy guesses and Natasha gives that not-smile again, the slow flickering of lashes in Darcy’s general direction and Darcy knows that she’s hit the nail on the head.

“One tribe or many?” Darcy watches the redhead like a hawk and as the silence stretches on, Darcy pales. “It’s not just Native American, is it? Are we talking like Aztec or something? South American? Any other European-type deities running around?”

The elevator slides open and Natasha steps inside, leaning casually against the far wall.

“FRIDAY, privacy, please. Widow-niner-seven-alpha-niner-gamma-beta-six.”

“Privacy policy enacted, Miss Romanov. You have five minutes.”

“First one we encountered was maybe two weeks after I got you settled in the cottage,” Natasha says shortly. “Man claiming to be Varuna splashing around in the Hudson. Officers thought he was a crackpot except that wherever he was, the water was purifying. It was a fluke that Stark was called in at all. He’s known for clean energy and they thought that maybe he’d dropped an experimental filter in the river and hadn’t gotten the permits. It was weird enough to trip Stark’s alarms so he went, got the lowdown and some pictures of the guy. We’re lucky he was in lockup, to be honest. Varuna’s mouthpiece went easily enough, no protests. When we were going through debriefing, the packet included his mugshots and his wrists were covered in markings like yours.”

“And Loki spotted them right away.” Darcy’s voice is barely audible.

“Immediately,” Natasha agrees. “Cue three weeks later. The zoo had a mass exodus. Animals everywhere and right in the middle is a naked guy, dragging a llama skin behind him, claiming to be Urcuchillay. When confronted the animals attacked anyone who tried to get close to him. He’s still missing.”

“But the security cameras got enough?”

“Very clear pictures of the markings on his wrists, chest, and back too,” Natasha agrees. “Since then, outside of Varuna’s guy, we’ve encountered a over a dozen people claiming to be deities that bear markings like yours. None of them have allowed themselves to fall into custody.”

“Except for Varuna.”

“Varuna’s mouthpiece doesn’t even know his own name, when the god’s not in there the guy is a drooling shell. Emptied out entirely,” Natasha sighs. “It’s got everyone very worried.”

“Because I’m not like that.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Who else?”

“We’ve encountered people with marks declaring themselves to be Venus, Kohara, Pinga, Gleti, and one really, really pissed lady claiming to be Colel Cab. Steve threw down with a man saying he was Erinle, Banner inadvertently had coffee with Omoikane and Inara, Stark encountered Leshy out in Hell’s Kitchen of all places, Iya asked Wanda out to dinner but never showed up, and Clint spent half an hour talking with a lady who later turned out to be Saule’s mouthpiece. Here’s the kicker… she claimed that she remembered him from when he was a kid, after his parents passed. Clint’s not even Latvian. There are others but those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. They are clearly seeking us out, either out of curiosity or to size up potential threats, who knows? It took awhile before any of us was really on board with what was happening. They seem completely normal… at first.”

“So what you’re saying is that you thought you had a rash of crazy people on hand except Loki was squirrelly about the weird tattoos they all had.”

“He was actually very upfront. It’s just that no one at SHIELD believed him and the Avengers, in general, hadn’t gotten around to trusting him yet.”

Darcy snorted. “Bet he loved that.”

“Well, Hill is sort of hard-headed about certain things,” Natasha says with another small, secretive smile. “After all, when an ex-world-conquering faux-god tells you that some gods are actually real and that one of them tried to crawl inside his girlfriend’s body five years before he died in a fiery magical explosion, well… he was still earning our trust.”

“And now?”

“And now we have a situation on our hands that no one other than the pair of you even has the slightest idea how to handle.”

“I don’t know why you’d think I have a clue,” Darcy protests. “I’m not exactly in the goddess loop either; Hel is very closemouthed when she wants to be. Why didn’t you ask Fionnula?”

“We sent agents back to do just that but the valley is empty. Can’t find a single one of your new friends. So either they’re very, very good at hiding-“

“Which is totally possible,” Darcy points out.

“Or they have abandoned ship,” Natasha finishes. “It’s also entirely possible that the gods have taken their mouthpieces over completely. That’s what seems to have happened here. You, Fionnula, Bran, and the man who touched Bucky are the only ones we’ve met who are still…”

“Human… or human enough to be reasoned with,” Darcy finishes bleakly. Her fingers reach out and gingerly stroke the thin skin at her wrist. “And Hill wants to know why.”

“You’re the only one we have, Darcy,” Natasha says, steady and even. “The only mouthpiece who isn’t either brain dead, controlled, or vanished.”

“Great,” Darcy sighs. “So. Medical?”

“Tests on tests,” Natasha agrees, flicking an imaginary piece of lint off her sleeve. “I don’t know what Hill’s looking for exactly, from the outside you appear completely average-“

“Gee, thanks.”

“Average isn’t bad, Darcy,” Natasha chides her, straightening and checking how much time they have left to talk. “I’m sure you’d rather be a normal girl than have Death beneath your skin.”

“You have no idea,” Darcy sighs. The elevator has begun moving again. Their time is up.

Natasha’s lips quirk but behind the impassive mask she’s donned her eyes are dark and haunted. “I might.”

 

 

Days bleed into weeks with no sign of further gods or goddesses. SHIELD is still edgy though and Darcy spends an hour every morning being a pincushion. She’s begun to put a little of the weight she’s lost back on but when she tries to visit Loki, she’s blocked by SHIELD agents and an apologetic note from Hill.

Loki, it seems, is out on assignment with Thor, Sam, Stark, Rogers, and Wanda and no one will tell her where he’s gone or how long he’ll be away. Natasha and Clint come and go and Banner stays in his labs almost exclusively. She sees snatches of Pietro here and there, a flash of silver there and gone, feels the wind of him passing in the halls on occasion, but she would feel weird meeting him without Wanda, senses that he’s been shaken by his time locked in the earth, and doesn’t want to disturb him as Pietro finds his footing back in the land of the living.

Pepper checks on her one night, bringing a couple boxes of Darcy’s favorite wine and three bags full of thick meatball grinders on toasted Italian bread and slathered with heavy mozzarella. It’s more than ten times what either woman can eat alone and Darcy suspects that they’ll have incoming before the night is through. Sure enough, Jane wanders in half an hour or so later, Banner at her heels. Ten minutes later there’s a momentary flash of silver, the door opening and closing on its own, and two of the footlongs are missing, but Pietro doesn’t bother to stick around and chat. Clint and Natasha appear about halfway into the first box of wine, with Hope - the Wasp to Lang’s Ant-Man – in tow. The Pyms have, it happens, recently took on a guy calling himself Horus, and Hope has a whole list of questions Darcy can’t answer. Hope eats, has a glass of wine, and leaves mostly unfulfilled but Darcy’s opinion of Scott Lang is much improved. At the end of the evening, after her remaining visitors are pleasantly tipsy, there’s a tap on the window and Pepper has FRIDAY release a specific window in the upper right corner of the room so that Spiderman crawl in and snag the last couple of hoagies. The boy doesn’t show his face; he merely thanks Pepper, sits crosslegged on the ceiling, rolls up his mask so it mostly still covers his nose, and goes to town on the sub, tearing into it like he hasn’t eaten in days. Between bites of the sandwich he fills them in on his evening.

Horus, it turns out, isn’t the only Egyptian deity out on the town recently. It is the first they’ve heard of further gods in weeks, and Darcy can’t squash the uneasy feeling in her guts learning that Spiderman and two others named Daredevil and Deadpool had supposedly cornered the Egyptian god Geb near the dead branch of Yggdrasil in Central Park before the god smacked the side of the tree once and vanished.

“Poof!” Spiderman finishes his tale along with the last bite of his sandwich, wiping a bit of sauce off the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin Pepper proffered. “I’ve dealt with Dr. Strange, so it’s not like I haven’t seen guys vanish before, but this wasn’t all yellow sparks or that green flash like Loki. He was just there… and then he _wasn’t_. Like blinking.”

Darcy doesn’t miss how they slant looks at her when they think she isn’t watching. How they wonder how she’s going to take the newest addition to their list of wayward deities. She shrugs. “I’ve never seen a god vanish, so I can’t help you,” she says, and it’s the truth. “Sorry?”

“So Hel doesn’t make you go poof?” Spiderman asks artlessly and only realizes that he may have miss-stepped when Pepper glares up at him. He shrugs apologetically but doesn’t withdraw the question.

“Hel and I are - chill? - right now,” Darcy says, not bothering to hide her own uncertainty as to her status with the erstwhile death goddess beneath her flesh. “She seems to be… sleeping? But then again, it’s not like I’ve been dealing with dead people or even sick people. I’ve been kinda holed up in here. If you all had me out with you that might change in a hurry.”

Both Natasha and Clint straighten at that, shooting one another those inscrutable looks they’re so adept with.

“Wait,” Banner says, musing. He has the same far away look Jane sometimes gets contemplating the finer points of the Bifrost and the physics required to bend space and time to her will. “You mean to say that if you’re near someone who’s dying Hel is more likely to come out and play? Is it instinctual? What about if you get close to, say, a hospice? Do you have any control at that point?”

Darcy can feel her shoulders hunch up, can feel her arms wrap around her waist as she takes a few steps back. There’s a moment – red on snow, tiny squeaks – and she’s shivering, remembering bark-rough fingers grasping her elbow, the brush of green leaves through her hair.

“There was a man,” Darcy says distantly. She is woozy and the wine has worked its way through her. Her limbs are heavy and loose and there is a fluttering, careful movement in the back of her mind. A stretch. Prodding. And a memory. “And a cat. In the snow. So much… so much blood… pain… it was in pain… and I… I… oh, god, I…”

Copper fills her mouth and Darcy heaves. Black-red blood splatters the pristine tile and it’s fever-bright against the white, splashing up Pepper’s white pants, droplets dotting Jane’s arm. It smells of rot and decay, maggots and burning wet leaves and old, moldy forest mushrooms, dusty and musty and black with purpose.

“Darcy? Darcy!” Jane’s hands are on her shoulders and Darcy jerks away _hard_.

“Don’t touch me!” Her voice is thin and high and the black is flowing like quicksilver over her skin, the last of her red blood dripping down her chin, blackening, thickening, and congealing. It’s cold as ice. Darcy has precious seconds left and she tries to warn her friend: “Don’t Jane! Don’t!”

She’s gasping and the velvet is curling against the edges of her mind, flexing fingers, Hel woken from her stupor and eager to slide in control once more. “Don’t, Jane, don’t touch me, you’ll get… you’ll get…”

“Miss Potts, the ambient temperature on this floor is rapidly decreasing,” FRIDAY cuts in. “It has dropped ten degrees in twenty seconds and does not look to be stopping. Twenty degrees. Thirty. Forty. Fif-fif-fifty. Apol-apologies, Miss Potts, I-I-I am having prob-problems proc-processing. Sixty.”

Ice is crawling up the walls. Darcy’s breath comes out in foggy swirls. Then her breath is so thin that the puffs of air from her cease entirely as Hel fills her entirely, stretching out in Darcy’s skin like a well-loved coat, wiggling her fingers and toes as she settles in.

Darcy has little need to breathe when Death walks in her flesh, after all. A film slides over her vision, like Darcy is seeing the world through death-clouded eyes. She can hear what is going on, and see shapes and colors, but they’re very distant, muted and soft and padded, as if a shroud has been tugged gently over her entire body.

“Fuck,” Clint says from a world away and Darcy hears the elevator, the snap of Pepper’s heels, the noises of Jane protesting and Banner fretting as they’re both bundled quickly away.

“Darcy,” Natasha soothes. She is not touching Darcy but she is within arm’s reach, eyes watchful and guarded. “Come back to us. Darcy. Please. Come back.”

“Death’s daughter,” Hel’s voice slips from between Darcy’s lips. Natasha, to her credit, doesn’t flinch, but her gaze darkens. “Elegant. Graceful. Perfect, honestly. You should be my supplicant.”

“Not really my style,” Natasha says smoothly. “I’d like to speak with Darcy now.”

Hel smiles with Darcy’s mouth, tilts Darcy’s head as she regards the Black Widow. “No.”

“Gonna let her come back?” Clint asks and he’s already on the move, arrow never wavering, sightline true.

“Perhaps.” Hel waves a hand at the remaining plants and they wither and blacken immediately. She smiles. “You’ve done well, you know. Keeping her calm and stable. Removing the thorn in my side was your first error. His proximity makes her hopeful, makes her want to cling to existence and the light and warmth.” Hel cuts a glance over her shoulder and Clint curses again. “I like to watch him squirm. To try and keep her from me.”

“Loki,” Natasha says.

“Meddlesome little magician, isn’t he?” Hel flicks a finger and more ice crawls across the closest window. It is bitter cold in the room now; FRIDAY has gone completely silent. There is groaning from the struts in the walls, from the glass. Up high Spiderman is silently waiting, shivering in his spandex, but Hel can’t be bothered with the juvenile arachnid when the more dangerous one is within lunging distance. The boy is innocent, his hands unbloodied, but the woman across from her is fairly dripping with blood, has basically bathed in it over the years, and the scent is copper-sweet and exquisite.

“Darcy needs him to keep you at bay,” Natasha says and it’s not a question.

“Darcy _needs_ no one but _me_!” snarls Hel, stalking forward and thoroughly enjoying the graceful way the Widow steps aside, a deadly waltz between them. “However,” she concedes, “Darcy’s more likely to let me control her when he’s not near. When she’s weak and tired and sad.”

“Keep Loki at home, gotcha,” Clint mutters from above.

“Hardly the point now, is it?” Hel says. There is a sharp pop as the cold finally sends a shivering spiderweb of cracks through the most fragile of the glass windows. “As Darcy won’t be here?”

She’s off, Widow moving to intercept her, but the glass shatters across Darcy’s forearms as Hel flings them both out the window. Darcy’s body is plummeting, Hel assured of their safety, when they’re caught short by sticky white substance that snatches Darcy by one arm and jerks it up sharply. If Hel hadn’t been in control Darcy’s arm would have been ripped completely off. Instead Spiderman’s web has merely slowed her descent.

“You _dare_!” snarls Hel, surprised at the sheer audacity of these awful mortals, but a moment later there is a sting in her neck, a whip-thin arrow embedded in the curve between shoulder and neck, and Darcy’s body goes limp and still.

 

 

Together, they sleep.

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

 

 

“Your mortals are troublesome,” Hel says when the blackness recedes somewhat. They are lounging at the edge of a vast, black river, and in the very far distance there is a circle of white light at the mouth of the river, gleaming somehow cool and warm at the same time. “I should inhabit you completely and do away with them. Showing you kindness and mercy has given them… _ideas_.”

“Is that what the others did?” Darcy asks, prodding the riverbank. Here the grass is dead and crackling, and along the edges of the river, thin scrims of ice float, bobbing on the waves. “Inhabited their vessels completely?”

“I am not them, I do not know,” Hel sniffs, but they both know she is lying. She might not know for certain but Hel certainly has a good idea. Darcy feels a thin thread of fear uncurl in her gut.

“Is that what you plan to do to me?” A lily pad, curled black and dead floats by, trailing roots like white wisps of hair just beneath the rippling water. “Take me over forever?”

“No,” Hel sighs. “Darcy, you are my daughter. You are my chosen one. I would not take you without your will or before your time.” She rubs one pale-skinned hand through the dead grass and it makes a noise like autumn leaves. “Not for more than a short period, at least.”

“Then why try to run?”

Hel frowns. “They’ve trapped you there and you could not see it. You are needed outside the tower, Darcy. You are important. We are important.”

“To bring about the end of the world? Ragnarok?” Darcy squats down, face drawn tight.

“There are millions of worlds, countless dimensions, child,” Hel says, settling on the riverbank beside her. “In a dimension a breath away from our own Ragnarok is occurring right now. Another daughter of mine wraps her fingers around her swords and cuts vasts swaths of Asgardians down. In retribution, she says, and yes, that is it in part, but also because she enjoys killing. She enjoys death.”

Snorting, Darcy rests her chin on her knees and watches as a thin woman who reminds her too much of her mother, floats by face up and eyes white and open, lips a crooked white line in a face haggard with unhappy decades. “You say that like it doesn’t make you happy.”

“My dominion will always give me pleasure, true,” Hel concedes. “But only in that it is what I am and what I do. However, I do not take glee… further glee… in taking lives. I do what must be done. I am a servant to the cycle.”

“You’re saying that you don’t love it when tons of people die all at once?” Darcy scoffs.

“I don’t.”

Darcy stills. “Seriously?”

“What? You believe that someone bringing me a bouquet of souls to deal with is pleasant? Something I’d seek out or be flattered by? No, daughter, for me a bus accident or a battle that claims hundreds in one afternoon is no more than… how would you say… a busy day at the office? Sometimes it is pleasant to have much to do, sometimes it is bothersome, but mostly I simply get on with my work. If I were not here, ferrying the souls into the dark for their rest, they would sink into limbo and go mad.”

“Never heard of limbo before,” Darcy muttered, perplexed. She would have figured that someone killing a bunch of people would have revved up whatever engine Death had going on rather than being viewed with something like boredom. “I thought you said Heaven doesn’t exist.”

“It doesn’t. Neither does Hell. But limbo… limbo exists.” Hel pushed back the cloak on her hood and Darcy was startled to realize that, in this place at least, Hell was no longer rot and bone and stinking flesh. She looked quite a lot like Darcy, actually, somewhat older around the eyes and mouth, but as Darcy might appear in ten or twenty years, though her mouth was still a beestung, red pout, and her eyes were heavily lined in kohl. Her hair was a cascade of long black curls, her skin alabaster white, and eyes as blue as a cloudless midsummer sky regarded Darcy evenly.

“When did this happen?” Darcy asks, half-choked, gesturing to Hel’s fleshier form. “Last I saw you, you were skin and bone. Literally.”

“While I rested,” Hel said, lifting one whole hand and examining it. Her nails are matte black and less like curved beast claws and more like regular human nails, significantly shorter and flatter, while still being wickedly sharp and curved. “It is a mask, I think. Beneath it all I am still the certainty of the grave but even gods cannot walk the worlds stinking of the charnel house.”

“I fucked up, didn’t I?” Darcy rests her chin on her knees again. “I opened that doorway for you and now all your buddies are coming out to play.”

“Immortality is tedious, Darcy,” Hel says, standing abruptly and Darcy blinks up at her, surprised. “We are each mostly locked away in our own domains, doing our own jobs. No one speaks to us except in prayers and supplications. I am never lonely, for even now I hear the begging of wives and husbands, parents and children and grandchildren, friends and lovers and every other kind of human. I hear them calling to me: _Take me. I am tired. I am weary. I am sad. I am in pain. Take me, Death, please. I am done. Let me die._ And then, as a counterpoint, I hear their companions and families, teachers and more: _Please, let them live. Please, hang on. Please, don’t go. Please, I need you. We need you. Don’t go._

Darcy licks her lips, rubs the back of her hand against her mouth. “If you hear this all the time, why don’t I hear it too? If I’m your handmaiden or whatever?”

“I protect you from it. A day of these whispers and you’d be driven out of your head.” Hel makes a gesture and the river before them is momentarily filled with a noise like thunder, a long, low chorus of moaning and crying, wailing, and the single woman who’d floated by was lost in curls of white, like frothing surf. The river was suddenly stuffed with bodies, overflowing with souls, nary a thimbleful of space between them, as the unending parade of floating corpses bump and jostle themselves toward the brilliant circle of white light in the distance.

Hel curls her hand shut and the white forms vanish, the deafening moaning cuts off abruptly and in the distance all Darcy can see is that solitary woman, nearly at the light, her hair floating peacefully behind her.

Oh. OH.

“That’s what happened to some of the other supplicants, isn’t it?” Darcy sits up straighter, regarding Hel with a kind of muted awe. “Most of them wanted their mouthpiece’s body and they didn’t care if they burned out the human soul inside the shell, so they just… left Deity Radio on? Turned up high?”

Hel blinked for several long seconds and then she threw her head back. A strange, croaking noise coughed out her mouth and it took Darcy several more long seconds to realize that Hel was _laughing_. Not the cruel chortles and evil, sneering, mocking laughter from before. _Real_ laughter, happy and light and free.

When finally the croaking ended, Hel was wiping the back of her hand against her eyes and grinning. Her teeth were still too sharp, too yellowed and ragged, but there was no malice in her smile. “Daughter, that was lovely. And correct. Yes, ‘Deity Radio’ is an apt way to describe the calls and cajoling of those who would speak to the gods.” She taps one of her black, curved claws against her front teeth thoughtfully. “My… supplicants are somewhat more direct in their communication to me than most of the others. But when a soul longs for judgment, all those who claim justice as their domain must hear, even if the supplication is not cried aloud… a mere whisper within your heart will garner our attention.”

Darcy thought of Brigid, of growing things and the green-man, and wondered if a nature walk on the first warm day of spring was like praying to him, if coming home after a long day and beginning dinner was like leaving a sacrifice at Brigid’s hearth. She thought of Clint, growing up orphaned in the circus, and his reported chat with Saule, the protector of orphans and lost children. Wondered how many torrents of tears, how many wars and accidents and illnesses, had woken Saule up from whatever existence gods had before they were gods.

“Are you going to help us after all?” Darcy asks, surprised at the curl of warmth deep within her.

“Yes, sweet daughter. I am going to help you.”

 

 

 

“Darcy,” Hel says suddenly, her expression hardening. “It is soon time to wake up. You will be sore, you will be tired, but you must not share what we’ve spoken of here, outside of allowing your compatriots to know of the soul… the soul - burnout? – that can occur.”

“But why?” Darcy said.

“You must trust me. It is for your own safety.” Hel knelt down and took Darcy’s hands in her own and for the first time in all the time that Darcy and Death had been on speaking terms, Darcy realized that Hel was frightened… for her. The mere concept of the goddess being worried for her was like a stunning blow. Darcy felt ill from the rush of fear and concern and bemusement and giddiness.

“What’s wrong?” Darcy whispered, raising her hand in a daze and cupping Hel’s cheek.

Hel leaned her face into Darcy’s palm. Her cheeks were cool and smooth and oddly rigid. “Daughter. Wake. Wake up, Darcy…

Darcy… wake up.

     Darcy…

          DARCY, WAKE UP!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is more coming. I've written most of the next chapter but these updates will be sporadic. I do intend to finish the story.


	16. Chapter 16

 

Gasping, Darcy shot straight up, the top of her head cracking Loki neatly on the underside of his chin. He staggered back a step, into Thor, who caught his brother by the shoulders and steadied him.

“Jesus, look at her arms,” someone said from across the room and Darcy slowly raised her left arm, stunned to watch the swirling blackness curl like smoke across her skin. Before her eyes it faded to grey, then white, and was gone, leaving her flesh pale and unblemished except for the complicated curliqued cuff and slashes on her wrist, the silvery pale scars from Hel’s first visit with Darcy all those years before. Then, the black faded in again, curling black, then grey, then gone, then grey again. Hel waxing and waning beneath her flesh.

Darcy turned her face to Thor and Loki and said, voice echoing from Hel’s touch, “Ragnarok comes, has come, will come again. Asgard will suffer for your hubris, child of lightning. Asgard will fall for your folly, lie-smith. The sky fills with stars and Midgard _burns_.” This last is said with a hiss.

“Fucking hell,” another voice from across the room whispers. “Are you getting this, FRIDAY? Audio, visual, full spectrum analysis?”

“This incident is being recorded in full, Boss.”

Loki looks as if she’d reached over and stabbed him in the chest. “What do you mean? What do you mean ‘Asgard will fall?’ due to my folly?”

“She’s trying to get under your skin, Loki,” came the Captain’s comforting rumble just out of Darcy/Hel’s field of vision. “Don’t let her. Concentrate on waking up Darcy.”

Hel’s mouth curls and she chortles darkly. “Darcy’s awake. She just… can’t come to the phone right now.” Hel held out one hand, turned it left and then right, and then curled her fingers into a fist. “Mortal flesh is so weak. So easily cut. Burned. Damaged. Without… and within.” Her hand flutters down to the slope of Darcy’s stomach, fingers tapping just above the navel Loki had licked and caressed a bare breath of hours before. “So easy to make a blood sacrifice when you flutter beneath someone’s skin.”

Loki hisses in sharply but he is not the only one who does not mistake her meaning.

Slowly Hel turns her head to the man who’d held utterly still and silent in the corner. “Sorcerer Supreme.”

“Madame Death,” the red-caped man replies, bowing slightly. His bearded face is long, and his eyes are bright with intelligence; a small smirk curls the corners of his lips.

Hel settles Darcy’s hands in her lap primly. “You did explain that you can do nothing for her, correct? I’d hate to think you made a house call on false pretenses, _Doctor_.”

Strange shrugs easily, spreading his hands wide. If Hel hadn’t sat at his bedside while they’d reassembled those clever fingers into the damaged paws they currently were, she’d not have noticed the fine trembling of the nerves firing and misfiring along each slim digit. “Lady, they called and I answered. It’s not like you and I haven’t tussled before, after all.”

“Not quite so directly, I think,” Hel chuckled. “Though I heard every word from your lips, sir. Every curse, every demand, every silent inner prayer that I back away from your surgery, that I bide my time until later, until after, until you were no longer in the picture.”

Stephen Strange’s eyes narrow at her but he nods once, sharply. “I didn’t used to be the best guy. Good… scratch that, brilliant surgeon, yes. Kind of an asshole-“

“Also yes,” Hel says flatly. “But that is the nature of mortal medical men of your caliber. They all try to play god. Or at least believe themselves to be one step away from gods.”

He inclines his head again. “You are not wrong.”

“I heard your lamentations, after,” Hel continues, tilting her head toward his hands. “The whispers in the dead of night after the opiates had worn off and you had hours left before your next dose. Before the magic. Before you’d lost everything and had to crawl to the Ancient One and beg on hands and knees. Before the mountaintop and the near hypothermia. Before you began to grasp the secrets of mortal magic and tweaked the nose of an eternal eldritch creature beyond space, beyond time.”

Strange swallows hard but he doesn’t seem surprised or embarrassed. “I was in a lot of pain. And when you’re in pain, sometimes you bargain.”

She looks casually around the room. “Seeing as these lives are not currently being digested by Dormamu, I’d say your bargain was a success.”

He flicks a glance around the room. Everyone else was silent, staring with wide eyes, most confused but some, like the well-read and highly educated Loki, absolutely horrified. “You never came for me. When Dormamu killed me-“

“A thousand and twenty-nine times,” Hel reports crisply. “Nearly all of them excruciatingly painful deaths, I might add. You timed your time loop quite well, Sorcerer, or perhaps it was simply luck. I could have forced the encounter and taken you as it could easily have been your time, but I was curious how it would play out.”

“Thank you for giving me that grace,” Stephen Strange says, voice soft and faintly choked. “Without I couldn’t have saved this world.”

“You offer thanks in one hand and attempted betrayal in the other,” Hel points out slyly. “Which should I believe?”

Strange, to his credit, doesn’t flinch. “Spotted it out, did you?” One hand reaches into his cloak and reveals out a thin glass bauble. He rolls it between his palms. “Figured it was worth a shot.”

“Darcy sleeps, she has not been overtaken,” Hel retorts, smiling sharply. “That containment wouldn’t work on the likes of me even if she weren’t in here but I assure you, she has not been burned out. Darcy is too… _sweet_ … for me for her to end so ignobly.”

Loki exhales and the Sorcerer Supreme nods curtly, waving one hand over the thin glass sphere and it vanishes in a curl of yellow-gold sparks. “You really do have no intention of burning her out, do you?” he queries gently, watching Hel with eyes hooded and wise, the twist of his lips a familiar, mocking curl. He has dealt with death a thousand times, and like Clint, does not back down to the very last. “Unlike most of the others.”

“Darcy is… a dear,” Hel says softly, looking down at Darcy’s fingers curled in her lap and feeling an unfamiliar feeling. Guilt? It hurts, this feeling, it itches and stings. The fingers she wears are thin, too thin for a human, although not for her, and Darcy’s flesh is papery and pale. The green-man – no, _Bran_ – had spoken true. Darling Darcy would vanish in a wisp of fog if Hel pressed into her flesh much harder. Her rest and recuperation had barely filled out her flesh, and her eyes were still more hollow than bright, even without the added complication of Darcy’s dreaming body wandering hither and yon in the grip of the dreamscape. Despite Bran’s warning and the green-man’s sweet whispers, Hel had been pushing her handmaiden too hard. This realization lends a note of bitterness to her tone as Hel continues, “I wish I had realized it sooner. Darcy is a pleasant mouthpiece. She makes me laugh.”

There is stillness in the room, so quiet that the faintest rustle of the sheets beneath Hel’s legs seem oppressively loud.

“You… you like her?” the Captain says, startled. “This isn’t… some kind of revenge?”

Hel tilts her head toward him, raptor-like, regarding the big man and recalling when his flesh wasn’t so stretched, his muscles spindly things, when his heart fluttered painfully in his chest and his airways swelled to a pinhole at the slightest provocation. Recalls the prayers of the silver-armed man beside him, whispered benedictions in the dark, outright begging and scalding tears, ‘ _Please, let Stevie pull through. Don’t take him. Outside Becca and Ma, he’s all I got._ ’

She flicks her glance to the metal-armed man and he must sense some of her thoughts because he flinches and shifts slightly, as if he could block her from his friend, as if he could _dream_ of moving quickly enough to protect the dear Captain from her touch if Hel truly wished the big blond any pain or suffering.

“What is not to like about this woman? Her childhood… wasn’t,” Hel muses. She knows that Darcy, now sleeping lightly within her, would tense and fret if she knew the trunkful of her secrets Hel planned to trade for their trust, but there was nothing to be done about it. She needed them to relax around her, needed the meddlesome Sorcerer Supreme to leave the premises.

“As a child Darcy was violently abused - sexually, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Yet, she rose. In her adolescence she was taken for granted, forgotten, abandoned. Yet, she rose. In her adulthood she starved and struggled and was stolen from. Yet she held out her hands to those who harmed her and blanketed them in forgiveness and love. Spoke up for them. Would have stolen for them, even though they themselves stole _from_ her. Found them food, and shelter, formula for their baby, and whispered words of comfort during the darkest nights. This mouthpiece knows the blackest suffering this world has to offer intimately, has had it invade her every pore like a lover, and yet shows mercy. This mouthpiece knows love, and hate, and sorrow, and despair, and joy, and pleasure, and all she asks in return is to be seen, to be known, to not be forgotten or abandoned as she has been nearly every day of her short existence. Nothing else in return. Nothing. Simply acknowledgement that she is not a shadow, that she _matters_ , that if I took her this moment that she would be missed. That she is friend, sister, lover. So, Captain, I ask you again: What is there not to like?”

The Captain is stunned silent, horrified at the torrent of Darcy’s trials and tribulations, the labyrinths of agony and suffering none of them save Loki knew that she’d traversed. The red spider near the door has hidden her own horror away; for her puzzle pieces are fitting too neatly together. She is the closest of them to being another Death’s daughter – she does not pity Darcy her suffering, but understands it just as intimately. They, even more than Jane and Darcy, are sisters beneath the skin, the only difference being that every time Darcy has taken a human life it has been beneath Hel’s direct guidance and touch. Otherwise she never would have. It is a struggle they will have for some time yet.

Alternately, Natasha, Hel knows, understands the importance of a mercy kill.

Loki speaks. “Let her go. Please.” He drops to his knees beside the bed. “I will do anything, Hel, anything at all. Please give us Darcy back.”

“Soon,” Hel said offhandly, tilting her head the other way, regarding the prince of Asgard as one might a small smear of dirt on a windshield. Troublesome, in her way, and if it weren’t for Darcy, she would have wiped him from existence ages ago. “Very soon.”

“What is your end game, Hel?” Steve asks softly. He has taken her gifted secrets and set them aside to peruse later, clever man. “We get the impression that you’re not… not like the others. At least, not anymore? So why are you here?”

Hel tilts her head, regarding him steadily. “I intend to walk these worlds as I once did, without the need for Darcy’s shell to do so. But in order to do so I must be patient. Is that answer enough, good Captain? Or do you seek more?”

“What happens when the old gods start strolling around then?” Steve leans forward, watching Hel closely. He is not the only one. “What happens when there are territory disputes? Or fights? Or even if you get along… what then? Where does that leave the rest of us?”

“There may be petty family squabbles here and there,” Hel flicks a glance between Loki and Thor, “but we are all eternal beings and less likely to meddle with finite beings than you’d believe. We shall mostly do as we have always done, drift along answering prayers and taking on supplicants. Until the very end, at least.”

“And at the end?” Strange stands to his full height. He’s not trying to be intimidating, but there is an air of coiled tension in the lines of his body. He is still as stone but somehow shaking, shivering, with heat and golden flakes of power.

“At the end all of us end, Doctor Strange. Eternal and finite alike. When the stars burn out, and existence is the black and void stretching out into eternity. When the bubble pops and takes us all with it.”

He swallows heavily. “You’re talking expansion theories. Heat death and multiple dimensions and-“

Hel snorts and waves a dismissive hand in his direction. “I’m talking certainties, good doctor. All things that begin must end unless one exists outside of time and space. And those that exist in that terrible place are twisted and awful beings. Even to me.”

Stephen Strange shudders once and nods curtly, saying simply, “Yes.”

“Darcy is granting me the use of her body. In exchange, I have promised that she will never be alone again. You fear for her safety, for her life, or her soul. Know now that these are foolish fears. Darcy shall live until her time is done and I shall take her no sooner and no later. It is my vow. And, unlike some-“ another quick flicked look to Loki, “-I do not prescribe to trickery and slippery words. She’s given her soul to another and until _their_ death I would not deign take it.”

Strange raises one eyebrow at this, purses his lips, and nods. “I understand. You can’t burn her out, can you?”


	17. Chapter 17

 

The room has gone stock still.

“You take much for granted, _Doctor_ ,” Hel grates but she is obliquely amused at how clever the skinny mortal has proven himself. “I could burn her to pieces. Take her apart atom by atom, returning her to stardust.”

“Her body, yes, but her soul… if you don’t have access to it – real, _permanent_ access - you can’t burn it out. All you can do… is what? Take up space because she gave you permission to ride around in her skin?”

Hel bares her teeth at him. “Just so.”

“You’re not much better than the others by choice, then,” Strange concludes, rubbing his awful goatee with one spindly, tremoring hand. “Darcy just has you between a rock and a hard place.”

“Not quite,” Hel says, stretching toward the ceiling, arching Darcy’s body like a cat. She can feel the thin, papery covering that hides Darcy’s flesh from view slip from her shoulder, baring a rather large amount of the creamy curves beneath. In the background someone makes a troubled, worried noise but Hel does not care for shamed foibles. The mortals in this room already know Darcy’s deepest sins and secrets; a flash of flesh is nothing to the open, still inflamed wound of her past. “I am not a petty goddess, despite what you may think of me. I offer my aid with open arms. This body is young and sweet but not to my taste. I may have, once upon a time, taken Darcy’s soul as payment, but as I have stressed repeatedly during this tiresome little interview, _doctor_ , I _like_ my daughter. She shall come to no harm, even had I her true soul in my palm this very moment.”

Not entirely true, most likely, but Hel is weary of playing along. The problem with simmering within mortal flesh means the irksome need to deal with _emotions_ , the chemical contrails that guide the meat to fornicate and reproduce and huddle together around the warmth, to bow down in fear or supplication. Loki, for example, so similar to the man the green-man has chosen as his mouthpiece, sits so close that Hel can feel the heat of his illusionary flesh and the chill of his real skin simmering beneath. A memory, recent, surfaces and Hel longs, with all the force of Darcy’s dampening core, to lean over and lick a stripe from Loki’s collarbones to his ear, to tug that pale curve between her teeth and toy with him until he is moaning beneath her. She knows all the ways of his body, the feel of his manhood, silk and steel beneath Darcy’s palm.

She wonders idly if Bran – no, if the green-man – would like her to lick his neck as well.

Hel loathes the whole bothersome mortal mess.

“Hel-“ Strange begins again and she has had enough.

“I am done with this. Watch your words, Sorcerer Supreme, lest I grow… testy.” Hel pushes away from the bed and there are protests. The paper gown falls completely from her shoulders to flutter to the ground and she is gratified when Sam, Thor, and the Captain immediately look to the ceiling. Their attention is still on her, she knows, but their eyes remain high. Stark doesn’t leer, as she anticipated, but a rapid succession of desire-shame-irritation-worry flick across his face, followed by him abruptly turning his back and beginning to rummage in a cabinet across the room.

Strange - once a doctor always a doctor - doesn’t even look at Darcy’s exquisite curves. He sees them, of course, but she is a patient in his eyes and his heart, her nudity doesn’t even register as sexual to him. The Hawk and the silver-armed man are both soldiers and once-assassins, used to observing from a distance, even if the distance is merely emotional. They take in her nudity dispassionately. Like Strange, she is a target, and her flesh does not move either of them.

The women – the spider and the witch - are unmoved save for concern, although the spider takes a spare moment to make the same sweep of their reactions that Hel is. Her face shows no emotion but Hel can _taste_ that the spider is pleased with the various male courtesies shown.

Stark crosses the room; head studiously tilted high, and shoves a shirt blindly into Loki’s hands. “Here ya go, man. When she wakes up, Darcy’s gonna flip.”

Hel turns her eyes to Darcy’s love and smirks. He, unlike all the others, watches her easily, without having to resort to clinical dispassion. His eyes search her face for any trace of his darling. “Have you the nerve to touch me like this, lover? To feel the flesh beneath your hands cold with the grave when just hours ago it was warm and yielding beneath your palms? I am no danger to her now, Loki, but one day this chill will be eternal. You said so yourself. Just a handful of years and she’ll be gone, beyond the reach of all but me and mine. What were your precise words? _An infinitesimal amount_.” Hel chuckles darkly.

His knuckles whiten against the cotton of the shirt and a second later the gigantic plaid – _Thor’s_ she feels Darcy think distantly, stirring, this shirt belongs to his brother - is covering her from shoulder to knee, only the faintest thrum of his magic registering where Loki had willed the fabric over her flesh. His lips are a thin, hard line now. All graciousness and obsequious trickery fled in the light of her harsh truth.

It is Banner who speaks next. “Enough.”

He is a doctor like Strange, though not quite the same discipline, or trained in the same thorough manner. There was one shameful peek, nothing more, before his haphazard medical training pushes forward. Deep, deep within him, the Hulk stirs, annoyed at the lust briefly tightening within Banner, ruthlessly squashed, but the Hulk for all his size and strength, is yet a child, and settles back to dozing within the doctor easily and innocently enough.

“You will let me leave this building,” Hel says flatly. “I will do so alone. When I am done I will return your Darcy to you and not before.”

“That isn’t going to happen.” The Captain’s gaze steadily regards her now that Darcy’s body is covered and for an instant Hel contemplates rotting the fabric away again before their eyes if only to have them all stop _looking_ at her.

“You have no say.” Hel flicks a hand at the far door and it bangs open. As one they move, even the fighters _sans_ their preferred weapons, angling to block her path, a well-oiled machine, not needing to check with one another to see who covers which exit, who prepares magic and who curls fingers into fists. Hel would be impressed at the speed and accuracy if it weren’t quite so annoying. Only Strange, the outsider, isn’t clued in to their formation, though his own magic does spark at the tips of his fingers.

She breathes harshly through her nose. “You do not understand the mistakes you make. Leave me to my errands.”

“Not with our friend.” The Captain’s voice is firm.

Hel’s lips twitch. “It was your time. Time and time again.” She looks to the metal-armed man. “Your prayers were so pretty. Do you know what they looked like? Like ice, like frost, riming the windowpane. Curls and whirls, snowflake prayers and tears glinting like fresh-fallen snow in the earliest traces of dawn.”

Though his face is dispassionate, she can feel her words punch into the center of him. This sniper, this hunter, one of Nodens’s now, and she has hit his very heart. She can smell his unfolding, unbidden memory; the thin smoky smell from the jacked-up stove in their walkup, can taste the bitter salt of his tears and the thin broth he made with the precious bones he worked four extra backbreaking hours at the docks for. His desperation was palpable, softer than silk and velvet, sweeter than honey, trilling in the air with a bittersweet hum. This time, like last time, like the next time… one day Stevie would succumb.

“‘Please,’” Hel mocked him gently. “ ‘Please, let Stevie live. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, just don’t take him this time.’” The Captain jerks, eyes going wide, but the silver-armed man is still as stone. If she couldn’t feel the beat of his heart from across the room, Hel might think he’d been struck dead where he stood. “And did you do anything? Did you even know that you were selling your soul for your best friend? How many times did he fall ill, hmm? How many promises fell from your lips like crystals, so that I could sweep them up and hold them in my palm? So that I could trade them?”

The Captain growls, begins to move toward Hel, but is stopped when Thor steps between them. The big Asgardian’s face is drawn tight. “Speak plainly.”

“Promises, even those hastily spoken, have power. Words have power. Prayers have power. Even an instrument as dim and blunt as you has had that pounded into your head from your very birth. Your mother saw to that.” Hel taps one long finger against her lips. “So many vows, so many tears? How could I resist?” She holds out a hand and a clear globe appears in her palm. In the very center is a snowflake, white, sharp, magnified by the curves of the orb. “Shai and I had very little to do with one another until the end of a person’s life, but from time to time we’d meet and barter.” She begins playing with the silver-armed man’s promise, rolling it between the fingers of one hand and the other, spinning it with grace and precision Darcy’s mortal hands would never have accomplished alone.

It seems as if all breath in the room is held as she spins it on one finger and then flings it high, reaching out and snatching the orb from the air in a flashy burst of magic. Strange, the witch, and Loki flinch from the display but the others are simply horrified, watching the sphere dance from hand to hand.

“James, dear,” Hel says softly, so quietly that only the Captain, Loki, Thor, and the promise-giver hear her. “Time to pay the piper.”

When the orb cracks in Darcy’s bone-thin hands, all hell breaks loose. The assassin’s head snaps up, his face devoid entirely of emotion and he’s at Hel’s side in an instant, scooping her up and ushering her through their suddenly flawed formation with the efficiency of a man given over to monsters to be the creature even monsters fear. The Captain is yelling behind them, but the assassin knows every nook and cranny of his home better than any other. Unlike the others, this one spends his idle hours patrolling the tower; seeking the distant safety he knows lies somewhere, somewhere near, if only he could spot it. If only he could vet one more guard, seal up one more window, explore one more shadow, then, _then_ he would feel safe, _then_ would he be able to relax for the first time in seventy years. Hel could have told him, if she’d cared to, that in trading his promises to Shai, that his destiny had been set in motion. There was always going to be a man who fell from a train in the Alps, one who cheated Death, not by luck or by the effects of the bastardized serum coursing through his veins, but by her grace and will alone.

Shai needed a boogeyman, after all, and James Buchanan Barnes fit the bill beautifully.

They’d no sooner cleared the room than Hel pressed her lips hard to the silver-armed man’s lips and whisks them away. Given time Strange might be able to track them, or Loki, or the red witch Wanda, but she didn’t intend to give them time. She had an errand to run, after all, and a promise to keep.

“Stay with me now, manservant,” Hel murmurs when they wink back into existence at the edge of the water. Below the choppy waves there is a man, one who would never be hers until the end of all, is waking from his third or forth death of the night and, annoyed, has decided to continue sawing his shins free from the literal cement shoes he’s found himself wearing. Each drowning death pauses his progress and he heals a bit in between the moments of blue and black, but eventually he will succeed, given time.

Hel contemplates sending the assassin to free him. Darcy would do it, but then again, Darcy is in a fugue state in the back of her mind, weary and barely hanging on.

Before she can decide there is a step behind her, light and quite on purpose. Nodens wouldn’t allow himself to be heard otherwise.

“I’ve someone of yours,” Hel sighs, waving the assassin over to the Hunter’s side. “Thank you for the loan.”

Nodens smiles and it is a lean and hungry expression. “Not quite mine, not quite yours, not quite Shai’s any further. Peculiar boy, this.”

“Hmm,” Hel murmurs noncommittally. “He did as he promised, that’s all I require. Now, Brigid? The green-man?”

“Here,” Nodens assures her, smirking. Hel would strike the smug look from his face if she thought for an instant that the Hunter would hold still long enough to do so. If she extended herself, Hel could catch him, for even the Hunter must succumb to Death’s embrace one day, but she felt it wasn’t worth the bother, especially as she wasn’t in her full form as of yet. She truly _would_ risk burning Darcy out if she pushed the flesh too hard now.

“And the others?”

Nodens frowns. “They’re… about.”

“We must stop this.”

The Hunter raises one eyebrow. “I find it amusing that you went to all the trouble of piercing the veil between realities and now you want done with it? Have you a plan, Lady? Or was it merely a whim to let us walk this world once more?”

“Walking the world is fine. Ending it…”

“Was your original goal, was it not?”

It was and it was not. The problem with holding a hammer is that after awhile every solution seems like a nail. Hel chews her lower lip, enjoying the feeling of plump, young skin between her teeth instead of her own rotting flesh.

“I was mistaken.”

Nodens, to his credit, doesn’t pretend shock, doesn’t tease or mock her as some of the others might have. The Hunter respects Death still.

“I had reason,” she continues, her eyes searching the docks, looking for a familiar lithe form, the black hair and pale skin, the warm amber eyes. And, as if she had conjured him, there he is, at the edge of the pier steps leading down to the water’s lapping edge. He seems diminished somewhat here, in this land of concrete and glass, smaller, less green and verdant and bursting with vitality, but there is still a sharp edge to him, a knowing, a lush heat and coiling power that has the chemicals in Darcy’s body throbbing as he steadily approaches. Brigid is at the green-man’s heels, but she is smiling and Death realizes that the blasted goddess can sense the aching the chemicals have sent up through her mortal flesh.

Damn all the fertility goddesses to Limbo and back again.

Brigid says nothing, merely tucks her lined hands into the shapeless pockets on the thin cardigan her flesh has donned against the chill. The flesh is old but the eyes twinkle and sparkle, they _know_.

“My love,” the green-man says, approaching and bowing. “You’ve finally arrived.”

Hel, much to her consternation, feels the heat flush through her form. A blush? Honestly? She irritably pokes Darcy to faint wakefulness. How in the black cauldron’s depths is Hel supposed to get anything done with all these… _feelings_ and odious _chemicals_ flowing through her form?!

‘ _Don’t ask me_ ,’ Darcy murmurs in the back of her mind. ‘ _I’m not the one lusting after him_.’

It is not the truest of statements – the Bran body is similar enough to her lover Loki that they both know Darcy has contemplated very, very briefly the differences between them and what it might be like to lick those lips – but the bulk of the attraction lies within Hel.

“Yes, well, the meddling humans had Hel’s mouthpiece bound with magic and mortal containments,” Nodens replies and Hel realizes that she’s inadvertently allowed the silence to stretch on too long. She feels unwilling gratitude to the Hunter, but knows that no one here save perhaps the green-man himself is ignorant of why she stayed silent and still.

“Thanos,” Hel says sharply. She’s suddenly done, wanting no more of this mortal body and the accompanying uncomfortable sensations. She will happily give the body over to Darcy as soon as they’ve returned to the tower. In order to do that, business must be done first.

“He seeks you still,” Brigid says demurely, the first she’s spoken to Hel in a dog’s age. Her amused smile has faded and a frown line creases between her brows. “I can sense him across the stars, still lusting… and searching.”

Hel feels her lips curl. “The Mad Titan tries my patience.”

“No one likes a stalker,” Nodens agrees amicably. “Well, except for me. Who wouldn’t want to be stalked by me?”

“He bothers you yet, love?” the green-man asks. His eyes are so bright, so hot, and in their depths there are seeds cracking, spindly limbs stretching and reaching for the light. Great oaks in promise, vast deserts tamed with green and water and life.

“Ever the ardent lover, Thanos is,” Brigid sighs. “So you’ve decided against killing everyone before he gets here so he can’t kill them in your name?”

“That was your plan?” Nodens blinks rapidly, surprised. “Well, that’s one way of going about it, I suppose.”

“My domain is death, Hunter,” Hel reminds him sharply. “Not the tools of death, the act of it. What else am I to do save beg for help?” She chews her lip again. “How was I to know that most of those I called for aid would…”

“Forget,” the green-man finishes solemnly. “Being on this plane again, you must admit, it is a heady experience.” He runs his hands up and down his body, luxuriating in the skin beneath his fingers. “We were all somewhat mad the first time we settled into flesh. Most of them don’t have our… hands on… experience with the mortals.” He licks his lips and it is all Hel has in her to not follow that flicker with her eyes.

“They’ll settle,” Brigid agrees. “Though likely not in time. And since killing and resurrecting seven billion mortals is now off the table-“

“Could we hide them? Find them a barrow or something?” Nodens queries absently. He is walking around the still shape of the silver-armed man, alternately prodding and poking the metal arm curiously. “Are you going to release him from his promise, Lady?”

“Not yet, he is still of use to me,” Hel says, flapping a hand at him. “Stop that.”

“Why can’t you kill him again?” Nodens asks, straightening. “Thanos, not my hunter.”

“A curse.”

The green-man raises one elegantly arched eyebrow. “I am surprised that such would stop you.” He curls his arms around her and Hel stiffens in his embrace. She feels as skittish as a newborn colt, as nervous as a hare in a bare meadow, likely to dart away with the slightest provocation, but she hadn’t reckoned on the other god’s intent. Darcy’s pulse thunders in her ears at his proximity and as the green-man leans forward and actually _sniffs_ her, Hel feels her knees _buckle_. The green-man catches her and curls her into his embrace with a wide, knowing grin. “Hello, love.”

“Is now really the time?” Brigid asks, sighing.

The green-man smiles widely and rubs his nose against Hel’s. Darcy, within, bursts into disturbed, slightly manic laughter. His thumb reaches out and brushes against the side of Hel’s breast and the _throb_ that courses through her body takes Hel’s nonexistent breath away. “We’ll be in the flesh for such a short time, Brigid, at least until our own is finished growing. Surely a bit of… fun… isn’t amiss?”

“Incoming,” the assassin says sharply, crouching down and pulling a blade. It glints sharply in the dim light. Above them there is a flash of red and gold and then a harsh whirl as the man of iron and Thor drop to the sand beside them.

“Well, hey, what have we here? Bit of a reunion, huh?” The metal suited man seems agitated. “Bran, right? And whatcha doin’ out of your swamp, Baba Yaga? We went back to have a chat but it’s like you never were.”

Brigid raises one eyebrow at the man and then turns to Thor, smiling widely. “Hello, son of Asgard.”

Thor stiffens even further, his surprise causing him to drop out of his ready stance. “You are not-“

“No, I am not,” Brigid agrees and gestures to Hel still caught in the green-man’s embrace. “Neither is he the boy Bran.”

“Well, nice as that is, you two being, err, eternal lovers and all, maybe you should put the nice death goddess down, huh? Seeing as her _mortal_ man is on his way along with, well, just about everyone we know and their very pointy knives.” He coughs, his bluster and swagger strangely absent. “No one took it very kindly when you kidnapped the Winter Badass here.”

The green-man takes the metal man’s words as challenge. “Eternal lovers are we?” he murmurs into Hel’s ear. “Shall we test that theory?”

Stark protests, Thor growls, and Hel senses the tang of icy teleportation magic just as the green-man’s lips descend upon hers.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not a "here's a trigger warning" kind of person, but in this instance I'm gonna give you a head's up. This chapter and the next one will discuss some of the shittier aspects of Darcy's abuse growing up, including her rape as a child. If you are triggered by this, you should probably skip this chapter and the next one, the bulk of it being in the next chapter. I've been raped myself so it's actually therapudic for me to, well, get it out on paper. That said, it may be disturbing.
> 
> Please take care of yourselves.

 

“What the hell?!”

The magic – Loki’s – recedes, and Hel can vaguely hear Sam’s exclamation, sense the startled mortals dropped unceremoniously on the beach beside them.

“It’s not Darcy!” Thor hisses. “Loki, this isn’t-“

The green-man’s lips are soft, and sweet, and Darcy’s body thrums around Hel. The green-man is holding her up, his fingers cupping her around her waist, grip loose but firm. Her breasts press against his chest; they share mingled breath.

It’s when his tongue breaches the line of her lips and dips inside that Darcy within snaps to full wakefulness.

“Oh, FUCK NO!”

There is a brittle, tearing feeling and Hel is shoved sharply backward. Under normal circumstances she’d fight Darcy’s fury, force her way back to the forefront of the girl’s mind, but her head is spinning and she has simply had enough of wearing her mouthpiece’s mortal flesh for the day.

Hel retreats gladly.

 

Before anyone can say or _do_ anything, Darcy shoves back and slaps the green-man hard across Bran’s face. The green-man’s head rocks back, his pale skin flushing bright red in the shape of her hand.

“Bastard!” she snarls, jerking fully out of his grip. Beside her, Bucky blinks three times and falls to his knees, then pitches into the surf and vomits.

“Oh, hey, Darcy’s back,” Stark says, weak with relief.

“What the hell is _wrong_ with you?!” Darcy snarls, shoving the green-man on the chest. Her fury is bright and burning inside her, fierce and hot as the sun. “You don’t- I’m not- you absolute-“

Slim, elegant fingers rise to brush against inflamed skin. “Hello, Darcy. How are you doing?”

“I’m just peachy, thanks,” Darcy retorts sharply, hands bunching into fists. “You know, when I’m not being pawed on by dudes I’ve met once! You have anything else you need me to kill? Or was that a one time deal?”

There is movement behind her, an uncomfortable tension and pressure. Darcy can actually hear Loki’s harsh intake of breath.

The green-man’s lips twitch. “You wouldn’t take the necessary lessons from my love. How else were you to accept your purpose? How else could you be made ready for what is to come?”

“Yeah? Well right now my purpose is going to consist of my knee and your groin if you don’t back off right now.”

The green-man bows slightly. “My lady.”

“Not even close to being your lady, twinkle toes,” Darcy scoffs. “You and Bran and this Thanos dude can step the fuck off out of my life-“

“Thanos?” Thor’s abrupt snarl cuts Darcy short. Beside him Loki is the palest she’s ever seen him, wavering, eyes like hollows in the curves of his face, lips bloodless and stretched too thin. An errant touch would drop him. “What has the Mad Titan got to do with Darcy?”

“Why, didn’t you know?” Nodens straightens, stretches, and yawns. Looking at each of them in turn, bemused. “He’s in love with her.”

 

 

The return to the tower is near silent. Loki kisses her perfunctorily once before stumbling to the elevator with Thor to return to his quarters in the basement. None of the others will meet her eyes, not even Thor, as Darcy wanders to the common area, makes a cup of ramen, and abandons it as a bad job halfway through. The others are there, sure, but no one wants to get close. Well, with one notable exception. Bucky suddenly seems velcroed to Darcy’s side. She gets up, he’s there. She crosses the room for a cup of water, he’s three steps behind her. She curls up on the couch and Bucky literally beds down on the floor in front of the couch and no one but Steve is allowed within five feet of her without him stiffening and glaring at them.

The others, after what feels like forever, are called to the meeting room for a report. They file out of the common room, looking anywhere but her. All except for Bucky, Darcy thinks in irritation. He seems perfectly content with his new job as her butt-jewelry.

“I know for a fact she released your promise,” Darcy says after an hour of this uncomfortable shadowing. She leans over the side of the couch and meets Bucky eye to eye. “What are you doing?”

“You attract trouble,” Bucky grunts, pillowing his head on his flesh arm. “Like a magnet. If I’m here with you, maybe I can stop it.”

“You’re taking Nogens’s gift pretty seriously, huh?”

“I saw what was going down as it was going down, Darce,” Bucky mutters. “I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough to stop her though.”

“You didn’t deserve to have your head messed with again, you know,” Darcy points out. “Even if you did-“

“I made some promises,” he cuts her off. “Wrote some checks my ass couldn’t cash. I’m always getting on Stevie-“ he inhales harshly through his teeth and then grins, a sharp, bitter thing, all edges and tension, like a lone, rangy coyote at the blunted curls of dark outside a campfire, “-Rogers, I mean. I was always on him to not… be…”

“Feisty?” Darcy offers and is relieved when Bucky huffs out an amused snort. She goes for broke. “Determined? Sassy? Stubborn?”

“Pick one,” he drawls, but some of the tension has leaked out of his frame. “He was always picking fights with guys twice his size. Bad enough he’d damn near collapse getting to our walk-up every night. Four flights, you know? And in the summer it was so hot and the air was just filthy back then. Deep summer it damn near hurt _me_ to breathe, much less him.”

Darcy nods, understanding. She gets it, gets deep down that _need_ to protect someone. That drive. To be the umbrella that they could rest beneath. The one person with whom they could breathe easily.

“Worth it,” Bucky says simply. “Even if that was some of the scariest shit I’ve dealt with in awhile. Knowing my promises… kept him…”

There is a bitten off noise and Darcy’s immediately kneeling beside him, not even knowing how she got down there, but Barnes is in her arms and choking into her shoulder and her collar is wet with hot, fresh tears. He weeps near silently, his entire body one taut, harsh line, every muscle as locked and tight as they must’ve been when the electricity coursed through his system, wiping him, striking his soul from his eyes one tiny, terrible torture at a time.

After a time, he subsides. He makes to draw away but Darcy has had enough with the men in her life doing the stoic thing and she clings like a barnacle, refusing to let him go.

“Nope,” she says, quasi-cheerfully as she dares. “I cried on you, you cried on me, we’re sad-buddies now. Plus you were up my ass for over an hour, dude. Metaphorically speaking, I mean. I’m going nowhere.”

He huffs another laugh but relents. “How do I always end up stuck with the stubborn ones?”

“Must be your charming demeanor,” Darcy suggests. “So, since you’re gonna be wearing me like a backpack for the foreseeable future, you up for a piggy-back ride around the tower?”

This elicits an honest-to-god real laugh. “How?” Bucky asks when he’s calmed down. “How are you taking the fact that there’s a warlord on the loose who’s daffy for the deity you’ve got knocking around your skull so well? And the fact that he’s _looking_ for you?”

“Give me that piggy-back ride and we can talk as you walk,” Darcy insists, tugging a lock of Bucky’s absurdly silky hair gently. He growls lightly but it’s all for show and within seconds she’s curled on his back like a monkey, his metal arm reaching back to help support the bulk of her weight.

“You okay?” he asks when they’re in the elevator. There’s some classical version of AC/DC playing in the background and Darcy smothers a chuckle at Tony and all of Tony’s absolute ridiculousness.

“I’m in denial,” Darcy says lightly, wiggling her toes. In the shining stainless steel wall across from them, buffed to a mirrored shine, her reflection wiggles back. “Not just a river in Egypt, don’t ya know.”

“So not actually handling it well then.”

Darcy thinks for a moment. Tries to decide what is safe to reveal and what Loki might protest. But pride and pain seem like too much in this moment. Is even now the cost to be the entire planet? Shrugging she finally says, “This is the dude that tortured Loki into literal insanity. He took that big, beautiful brain and wrung it out and it took Loki… god, he’s still not fully recovered from it. And now that Death is in me, is flesh, and Thanos has… ways… of finding things out-“

“Yeah, I got the picture,” Bucky mutters. “Loki… you want to go down and see him? I mean, you can’t go in but-“

“Soon,” Darcy sighs. “He needs space. Time to sort himself out. I know if-“ she breaks off. Distantly Darcy can remember words tumbling off her tongue, even if she wasn’t the one directing them to do so. Secrets and shame shared with her new family, poisons she never wanted brought to the surface.

Darcy shudders. “She told you all, didn’t she? I didn’t dream that.”

Bucky goes statue-still beneath her. Then he clears his throat. “Yeah, doll. She did.”

Darcy nods. “Figured.” Then she lays her forehead on the back of Bucky’s neck as the elevator slides to a stop. “FRIDAY?”

“Yes, Miss Lewis?”

“Don’t open the doors yet. If someone wants on… I guess… if they’re an Avenger, let them on, but… no one else, okay? ‘Cept Jane. Or Pepper, I guess.”

“Of course, Miss Lewis.”

Bucky eases Darcy down, helping her settle in the corner of the elevator car.

“You don’t have to say anything, doll.”

It still hurts. She’d thought that she’d purged it all but it’s still there, aching beneath her breast.

“It was my dad,” she admits after several long minutes of agonizing silence. Bucky swallows hard and Darcy can hear the whirring of the plates inside his arm, settling themselves, preparing themselves, based on whatever is going through Bucky’s mind. Darcy’s only known the man a few weeks but she can already tell the difference between his fighting arm whirs and his normal, daily movement.

“Doll, you don’t have to-“

“He raped me.” There. There it is. Cold and harsh and out there. Before… before only Loki knew and even then she’d never been so blunt about it. Bucky is motionless beside her.

“He raped me. Over and over again, for years. And my mother blamed me. Said I wasn’t walking in God’s grace. And I was hit. And humiliated. And… and…”

Her face is in his shoulder again and oh, she started crying, when did she start crying? Words are pouring out of her now, muffled but discernable, so jagged in her mouth she tastes the salt and copper blood of them and the elevator doors are open and there is a knot of familiar faces just outside the car. Bucky is whispering harshly but the doors stay open and Darcy is weakly hitting the floor, the wall, his metal arm, sobbing and screaming, and admitting to the Sunday morning her father used his belt around her neck and her mother’s scarves over her mouth and eyes and how she could hear her mother praying to God in the kitchen below – for patience, for grace, for the ability to succor her worthless daughter another day.

“I was five!” Darcy shrieks and slams her hand so hard onto the metal floor of the elevator that something in her hand. just. _snaps_.

The pain is white-hot and snaps her confession off like a tap slapped shut.

“Get the sedative,” someone says.

“She broke her damn pinkie, didn’t she?”

And though Bucky is with her, has her in his arms, there are hands - loving, tender hands – guiding her, moving her, and Darcy is crying silently now.

Wanda is on the couch, they are back in the common room, and Jane is on the other side. Bucky lays her head in Wanda’s lap, her feet in Jane’s and someone covers her with a throw blanket. It is soft and warm but in that moment Darcy is with her father, feels it cover her, and shrieks again, thrusting it off.

“NO! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! PLEASE, DON’T!”

“Get Loki,” someone says. Sam, maybe? “Thor, man, please. We’ll clear it with Hill, but get your damn brother, _now_.”

“Darcy,” Wanda says, and her hands are at Darcy’s temples and there is a wash of red.

Everything goes soft around the edges.

Darcy slips into the crimson tide.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING FOR RAPE AND VIOLENCE. DO NOT PASS GO.   
> Next chapter should be safe.

 

     When Wanda opens her eyes, she finds herself in a heavy yellow-brown fog, gritty and thick. Darcy is sitting quietly on the ground beside her, her arms wrapped loosely around her knees and her chin – too pointed these days, skin stretched too tightly over bone – rests on her kneecaps. Wanda is surprised to realize that they are both dressed in plain blue jeans, well-worn and thin at the knees, and threadbare tee-shirts in basic colors - Wanda’s a serviceable dark-gray-that-was-once-black and Darcy’s a sweat-yellowed-off-white. The shirts are too big for them, they flap in the breeze.

     “Darcy?” Wanda whispers and kneels beside the woman she’s begun to believe is her friend, the woman she owes her brother’s life to. She would do anything for Darcy, anything at all, but the dead-eyed expression Darcy’s donned is so unlike the vibrant woman that Wanda finds herself frightened.

     “Loki came here once with me,” Darcy says quietly. “I didn’t want anyone else… to ever see this place.”

     “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world,” Wanda whispers. “Give me a moment and we can leave.” Wanda starts to gather her power. Or attempts to at least. Her power, already somewhat finicky and like oiled water or recalcitrant clouds, refuses to cooperate.

     “We can’t leave,” Darcy sighs. “I’ve been through this before.”

     As the last syllable leaves Darcy’s lips, the gritty fog - no, a dust cloud, Wanda realizes – begins to abate.

     “Welcome to my home, Wanda,” Darcy sighs and slowly, moving like an old woman might, rises to her feet. She runs her dirty hands against her thighs, wiping off the filth from her palms. “At least this time it’s jeans and not… not that stupid smock.”

     A smell rises around them – neglect and dry dust, dying roses and overripe wheat. There is a faint rustling noise, wind through a small copse of trees and as the dust finishes settling, Wanda finds herself in front of a house.

     It’s not much of a house, Wanda thinks, and that is coming from her, who before Tony Stark’s damaged bomb ripped her life apart, lived in a tiny home at the end of a derelict street. This house, somehow, manages to be even more pitiful than that. It crouches low against a hill, edged with what was once a white picket fence lined with scraggly rose bushes, overgrown in places and nearly dead in others. Once someone’d cared enough to paint the clapboards white but that had been decades before, the little paint that remains peels up in slivers, revealing the weather-beaten silvered wood beneath, and even then some sections show rotten and black. There is a selection of potted plants on the porch and down the steps, but they’ve all gone to seed and several are near dead, crumbling brown. A windchime hangs off the side of the house, most of the chimes rusted, leaving long brown trails down the clapboards, the remaining few chiming weakly in the uncertain breeze, the others thunking dully against the wood.

     “Don’t,” Darcy warns as Wanda takes a step toward the house. “I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

     “It’s a house, Darcy, nothing more,” Wanda assures her but this is bravado and she knows Darcy knows it. However, often the only way out is through, Strange had taught her that in the very few magic lessons they’d already had together. When things are most difficult that’s when you must square your shoulders and push forward, no matter the personal cost.

     “Your funeral,” Darcy sighs but then giggles a little, slightly manically. “Well, I guess not, actually.”

     Heart thudding in her chest, Wanda picks her way over yellowed grass toward the front door. The sky is an endless expanse of perfectly cloudless blue and there isn’t another house in sight for miles and miles, just corn and wheat and the dusty expanse of driveway and gravel road, with only the small copse of half-dead pine and oak trees clacking together just behind the house proper to break the monotony of blue sky, yellow earth, and endless whispering waves of grain.

     There’s a breeze – faint but enough – that tugs at the ancient white curtains in the windows, sucking them in and out with irregular regularity. The edges of the curtains are spotted brown but something about the splattering of color against the whitewashed clapboards and the shivering lace sets Wanda’s teeth on edge. Unconsciously, her fingers curl into fists at her sides.

     There’s a smell on the air, one she’s too familiar with. Copper. Iron. Blackness and rot.

     “Blood.”

     Darcy’s voice stirs the small hairs at Wanda’s nape and Wanda yelps, jumping slightly away from her friend. “You scared me!”

     “Sorry,” Darcy says but she doesn’t appear sorry. She doesn’t appear much of anything except resigned, tired, and worn to the bone. Too white teeth nip at her lower lip and Wanda realizes that Darcy’s already split her lip with the worrying.

     “Darcy-“

     “My mom never killed the mice,” Darcy interrupts, watching the brown-speckled curtain flap in the breeze. “She’d just keep catching them over and over again and then taking them to the trees out back and releasing them. She had to have known that they’d come back inside, dropping them off in those trees isn’t nearly far enough away for the mice to not come right back, but she kept at it. Like Sisyphus.”

     “She sounds like a kind woman,” Wanda says and it is exactly the wrong thing to say because Darcy’s eyes flash, not like Darcy but like Hel, and her teeth grind sharply together, the corners of her mouth curling tight.

     “That, Wanda,” Darcy nearly spits, “is where you’d be very, very wrong.” She steps back from Wanda and glares at the house as if it had all the answers in the world and every last one of them was wrong, bad, corrupt.

     “I’m glad this shithole burned down,” she spits and then crosses her arms over her chest.

     Wanda thinks of her home, of the broken, splintered ceiling, the creaking noise of the wood settling around them. The feel of Pietro’s arm around her shoulders, his thin frame half-tucked over her torso as her twin tried to shelter her beneath a body barely bigger than her own. The smell of burnt powder, the ticking of the cooling casings. The screams in the distance, the shouting, and the copper-iron-rust smell. The dark smell. The blood smell.

     Without thought, Wanda is entering the home, gliding up the stairs like a ghost of never-was, never-could-be, and up close the house reeks of decay and rot and even the front door is covered with a thin film of grey and yellow dust. Her hand reaches out slowly and barely brushes over the rusted front door knob. It creaks like something out of a haunted house despite her never turning the knob and the door slowly eases open.

     Wanda steps inside.

     There is a belt on the floor two feet within the house. It’s an innocuous enough item - brown leather, well-worn, a tarnished buckle rubbed smooth where fingers gripped it frequently – but the way it just lies there like a welcome stirs something small and frightened in Wanda’s heart.

     Darcy, still on the porch, makes a sound like a muffled moan.

     It’s an entryway, a foyer, like so many others Wanda has been in, but the walls were peeling, the baseboards dusty. There are a surprising number of windows on this level, each letting in a wash of warm sunlight from the side rooms on either side of the steep staircase a good ten feet away – a living room and a kitchen respectively – but the light doesn’t dim the strangeness of the house, the feeling of _other_ and _danger_ and _wrong_. The bright light catches motes of dust, sparkles in the air, slants across black and white photos tacked on the faded, peeling walls, outlines the smudges of small fingers down low. There is a thin, fraying runner of indeterminate color leading up the wooden stairs and a cobweb caught between two of the bannisters.

     The burn of whiskey drifts to Wanda on eddies of old air and she stiffens. “Darcy?”

     “Darcy! GIRL YOU ANSWER ME WHEN I CALL FOR YOU!”

     A thin woman pushes through the entryway, scooping up the belt with one hand and slapping the leather hard against the wooden stair railing post as she passes. Wanda leans back to avoid her but she shouldn’t have bothered; as she passes her skirt silently slips through Wanda’s hip as if Wanda were the ghost and this misbegotten place hallowed ground.

The woman peers into the kitchen and then spins on her heel, planting herself at the foot of the stairs and yelling, “DARCY GIRL!”

     The woman was pretty once, Wanda can tell. She has the look of Darcy about her – the same wide blue eyes, but bracketed with heavy lines, those same plush lips but these are downturned and pinched – but she is bony and thin where Darcy, even at her ridiculous Hel-caught thinnest, still has a curve or two to her, a tuck of hip and waist, a swell of breast. This woman looks as if the land has sucked the joy out of her along with the moisture. She gives the impression of being tanned and leathery without actually being so, and the set of her shoulders is sharp and harsh.

     The woman pounds up the stairs and there is a noise of a door slamming open followed with, “SAY YOUR PRAYERS! YOU SAY YOUR PRAYERS NOW, GIRL!”

     There is a long mumbling, interspersed with thin cries, and then, cutting through the air like a whip, the woman starts snarling, “‘And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day – just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of ETERNAL FIRE!’”

     There is the snap of leather hitting flesh, the mumbling voice cut off with a half-sob.

     “Devil-girl, you better keep on praying!” Another whistling, another sob.

     “There’s an alcove through there, in the living room,” Darcy says conversationally, as if some distant memory of herself wasn’t being painfully belt-strapped just above their heads. “It’s got a statue of Jesus in it. When I was a little girl I’d kneel down in front of it when Momma wasn’t home, when Daddy was out at the bar, and my brothers were busy catching snakes and bugs, and I’d pray for Jesus to come down and stop… and stop… to come save me. But Jesus never came. Despite that, I loved that silly statue. I thought it was so clean and pretty and fine. Momma dusted it every day, that statue and the crosses, even when she didn’t dust anything else. And after my daddy… after he died Momma would make me kneel in front of that statue every week and ask for forgiveness for being a slut, a seducer, an adulteress and a murderer while she whipped me raw for my sins.”

     Above them the hectoring voice has moved to a different verse and the tempo of the whistling strap has slowed, but the fervor behind the voice has grown more ragged, more vicious. “‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry!’”

     “Darcy-“ Wanda begins again, but she’s at a loss. Above them the whistling noise has stopped. It is silence, still and cold.

     “Let’s get this over with,” Darcy sighs and drifts toward the stairs. Her hand on the railing is trembling, her fingers gripping so tight that her knuckles have bled white.

     They drift like spirits up the stairs, into a narrow hallway, dim and cold. There are more cobwebs and dust here, whole sections of wall with cracked plaster and stained, waterlogged seams where the wall meets the ceiling. Here there is a cross, there a reproduction of Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount Henrick, and a half a dozen doors lay cracked, thin sunlight spilling into the hallway and illuminating the way.

     “Master bedroom,” Darcy says, poking the first door with her toe. It creaks open revealing a plain room with a full-sized bed, an armoire, a dusty-looking vanity, and a rocking chair set beneath the window, an embroidered pillow serving as the back cushion. There is a crucifix above the bed, the most intricate one to date, complete with a twisted, pained savior bleeding down the post of the cross. The room is empty of people, and cleaner than the rest of the house, but there is a stale smell, whiskey and rye, that seems to permeate the room and drift into the hallway as the women stand in the doorway, looking on.

     “It seems so much smaller now,” Darcy sighs and turns, tapping the next door with a finger, but not with enough force to open the door. “Bathroom. One for the whole house. We shared bathwater when I was little, my brothers and me. Momma always made me bathe last. We were on well water, so we had to conserve.”

     It was common enough practice where Wanda’d grown up but she’d never imagined that even in the poorest places in America such a practice might still be in service.

     “We did as well,” she offers nervously, glad to finally have some common ground with her aloof friend. “Though our parents made Pietro and I trade off who bathed last as we grew up.”

     Darcy nods, but it’s an absent sort of movement; she’s lost in her thoughts and not truly paying attention. “My brothers shared a bedroom when I was little,” she says, rapping lightly on the next door. When I was older… Momma said growing boys needed their space and moved me to the cellar.”

     The bedroom revealed is narrow and cramped as the brass-framed twin beds take up most of the space, set apart only by a narrow old banker’s desk, scuffed and deeply scratched. Along with the ever-present crosses, there are posters tacked up on the walls, not girls as Wanda had expected, but a football team on one wall and a tattered poster of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on the other. The window above the desk hasn’t been cleaned in ages and fingerprints line the edges clearly, outlined in dirt and dust motes.

     “Spare room,” Darcy says, crossing the hallway and this time pushing the door open with her whole hand. Wondering what made this room different, Wanda eases past her to step inside. The spare room is barely furnished but pretty in a threadbare sort of way. There is a spray of dried lavender in a vase on the windowsill and yet another wooden crucifix nailed to the wall above the bed. The bedspread is an old wedding quilt, fraying at the seams, and the pillowcases are edged with hand-tatted, yellowed lace. Darcy stills just inside the door and frowns at the far edge where a closet sits, open and dark inside. Closer to the closet, Wanda can just make out a faded aroma – lavender with the tart undercurrent of mothballs and that special smell that comes from cedar-mahogany lined closets, of old linens, and older wood, all overlaid with dust.

     “I got trapped in there once,” Darcy says flatly, palms cupping elbows. Wanda notes she strays not an inch further into the room than she absolutely must. “I was playing some game with my brothers – hide and go seek, I think – and I hid in that closet. It locked behind me.”

     Wanda drifts to the closet and fingers the knob. It is a typical blank closet knob – without lock entirely, made for simply turning.

     “It felt like days,” Darcy continues, looking out the window from her spot by the door. The sunlight dapples across the whitewashed floor and outside the sky is still that flawless, endless blue. In the corners of the room dust bunnies have multiplied and spawned whole families that stretch across the baseboards, that curl beneath the dresser and peeps out from beneath the dim shadows beneath the bed. “Momma said it was only an hour, but I remember starting not long after sunrise and when I finally left the closet it was near sunset. But I was little, you know? Maybe I had the time wrong.”

     Wanda peers into the closet and sees the bony shape of the girl in the back corner, all elbows and knees and bony ankles, thick black hair caught in a pair of lopsided, clumsy braids that dangle clear to the floor. The girl looks sallow and pale, her big blue eyes edged with long, sooty lashes. Even here, in this place, Wanda can see the potential beauty of this ragamuffin child, the even features, the plush lips, the elegant curve of brow over those huge, damp eyes.

     Swallowing hard, Wanda kneels down and offers her hand to the little crying girl. The girl seems to see her, her eyes follow the movement of Wanda’s hand. Slowly, so slowly, thin and trembling fingers reach for Wanda’s own. At the whisper-light touch of flesh to flesh there is a crash downstairs, the sound of a door slamming open, followed by pounding footsteps up the stairs.

     “You’ve done it now,” Darcy behind her whispers as the little girl yanks her hand free of Wanda’s and shoves past them, stumbling into the hallway and making for the last door at the end of the hall. She’s through the door before Wanda and Darcy are back in the hall, but the knob here is broken, hanging loose, and the door swings open slowly.

     It’s a little alcove of a room, more a closet than a space for sleep, but there is a twin bed tucked beneath the eave, a threadbare pink bedspread folded across the end of the bed. There is a cross above the slanted window and one poster on the wall, a turgid waterfall crashing into a pool so deep and blue that it’s nearly black.

     There’s no little Darcy in sight.

     “Bug!” calls a voice behind them and Darcy flinches. “Bug, you in here, girl?”

     “Darcy?” Wanda whispers.

     “You should close your eyes,” Darcy sighs, moving to the window and staring out. “I remember this day. Stop up your ears if you can.”

     “Darcy… Darcy what-“

     “There you are, Bug! Little bug, what’re you doing under that bed?”

     There’s a man in the doorway. He’s thin and stooped, just barely above Darcy’s height, and here is where she got her skin, despite his obviously hard life the man has skin like porcelain except for the broken capillaries across his nose. She has his hands, too, Wanda notes, trying to absent herself from the horror she knows is on the horizon. Long, thin, graceful. Pianist hands. Artist hands.

     He takes those hands and reaches beneath the bed and hauls out the little girl from before.

     “We playin’ another game, Bug?” the man asks and the stink of the alcohol hits Wanda in a hard wave, so eye-watering it forces her back a step. He stinks like unwashed cotton and soiled denim, the fog of alcohol barely covering another smell Wanda struggles to place… cheap perfume, tinny-scented and sharp.

     “I like your games, Bug,” the man says, and picks the girl up one-armed, chucking her on the bed that squeals loudly in protest.

     “Daddy, I don’t wanna play a game,” protests the little girl. “No more, Daddy!”

     His faux-jovial attitude drops sharply. “Now, Bug, there’s no call to be rude. I know your momma taught you better than that.”

     “Daddy, no, please,” the girl sobs and suddenly Darcy is at Wanda’s side, pulling Wanda sharply into her arms. “Close your eyes, Wanda,” she whispers and shoves Wanda’s face into her shoulder. Her hands cup over Wanda’s ears and she hums some song Wanda can’t quite place, close and loud.

     But Wanda can still hear, despite that.

     “If you don’t want Daddy to play Bug’s game, then Bug’s gonna play a game of Daddy’s.”

     Wanda can hear the sound of the belt clearing belt loops. She hears the sharp crack of palm against flesh, over and over and over again until the little girl is crying openly, sobbing hard, and then there’s a pregnant pause, the movement of air against them as the man leaves the room and returns.

     She hears the prayers, broken and wet, pour from the little girl’s mouth and then, after the man returns, the prayers muffled before being cut off entirely.

     She hears.

     She hears.

     She hears.

     The squeal of springs. The sound of a belt rhythmically slapping flesh in a staccato beat opposite flesh slapping flesh. Can smell the sharp stink of urine, the copper-iron of blood. And then, below it all, the thinnest of wheezing.

     “Hang in there, Wanda,” Darcy whispers in her ear, pulling her closer, holding her tighter.

     “He strangled you,” Wanda whispers.

     “Just keep breathing,” Darcy replies.

     Wanda pushes back and the sight that meets her eyes has her shoving her way out of the room, pounding down the stairs and out the front door, to retch thin bile into the yellow dirt and dead grass outside.

     She doesn’t know how long she retches, but when Wanda finally comes to herself Darcy is kneeling beside her, rubbing small, careful circles into her back.

     “It was summer, so long as Momma kept me from church, no one knew. Daddy spun some tale about me messing around out back, getting caught up with a rope, about him saving me. He kept… he kept raping me, but it was never like _that_ again,” Darcy offers, like it’s some kind of consolation, like the fact that it was never quite that horrible again was better than nothing.

     Then, as they kneel there, young Darcy pounds down the front steps. Her smile is big, she has a tablecloth around her shoulders. She is playing at being a superhero, alone in the yard, at peace. Her hair is in sloppy pigtails and she’s wearing a thin, short smock clumsily embroidered with flowers; there is no necklace of bruises around her throat. There are no weeping sores around her wrists. Her face is not puffy, her eyes blackened. She is young and pretty and having a blast, left alone, no more than seven and gleefully abandoned to the ocean of whispering fields and endless expanse of cerulean sky.

     “And here,” Darcy whispers, “here is where it all… began. Truly began.”

     A door behind them opens and her father, that terrible, stooped man takes the steps from the porch to the earth two at a time and Hel, Darcy’s Hel, appears in the doorway behind him. Hel sees them and smiles her terrible-dark smile. She is beautiful now, so alike Darcy as to be sisters, no white bones or black clacking claws in sight. Her dress is in tatters, sure, but her eyes are bright as she stalks behind the stooped, awful man.

     “Hey, Bug,” her father says. He’s half-naked and perspiring in the heat. The smell of booze and stale sweat pours off him, overwhelming the riot of roses and herbs. “Saving the world, little girl?” He reaches out and the little Darcy stiffens, glancing toward the door… no toward Hel, standing just past his shoulder. Her father moves closer, eyes searching her face for denial, for rebuke, for a chance, any chance, to punish her for disobedience. “Your mother isn’t home, Bug.” He leans down, leans close, and Darcy beside Wanda begins counting.

     “One,” she says as Hel stretches like a cat behind the man, rolling her head on her shoulders as if preparing to pop her joints.

     “Four,” she says as Hel cracks her knuckles, a rapid-fire crackling like popping corn, and flexes those fingers dangerously. The nails are still black; as they watch the claws curve outward, catlike from the tips of her fingers.

     “Ten,” Darcy says as Hel curls those hands across the sloping man’s chest, her fingers seeking out her target unerringly.

     “Fifteen,” she says as the fingers sink in.

     “Sixteen.”

     “Seventeen.”

     “Eighteen.” Hel twists her wrist _hard_ and yanks out something black and dripping.

     “Nineteen.”

     Darcy’s father stiffens, her name a strangled gasp in his throat, before he flops over onto the grass, twitches twice, and dies.

     Hel turns to the little Darcy, whose eyes are huge in her thin face, whose mouth hangs open. Tears are dripping down the little girl’s face, falling soundlessly to the dirt below.

     “You owe me, little one,” Hel tells Darcy. “I heard your prayers and I came. Do we have an understanding?”

     Little Darcy’s mouth closes slowly. She scrubs the back of her wrist across her face and nods, once, sharply. “Forget,” Hel murmurs, leaning down and kissing Darcy on the forehead. “Forget, sweet daughter of mine. Until the time is right. Forget.”


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All clear!

 

     “And that,” Darcy sighs as the world around them dims and the ramshackle house by the hill is replaced by Central Park at night, “was that.” They are still wearing the clothing from before but now they each have a thin black cloak hung loosely around their shoulders.

It does nothing to cut the chill from the air.

     “Where are we now?” Wanda asks. She recognizes the park but it’s not quite as she knows it, it seems less well-tended, and there is a crowd of people milling about yet very few people on the streets. The buildings around them are empty and dark, and Wanda was not particularly well-versed in every tower ringing the massive wooded area, but the stars above them were far too bright for the city.

     “In the past,” Darcy says and her lips are pressed thin. A woman passes them on the arm of a tall bald man. They are both wearing dark cloaks nearly identical to those Darcy and Wanda are wearing and the woman is glassy-eyed and gleeful. They have frighteningly familiar black and silver ink curled around their wrists and throats. “Five years in the past, or thereabouts.”

     “The tree…” Wanda spots it now, the dead and curling thing that even Thor’s hammer hadn’t been able to bring down. Any normal day there are hundreds of candles ringing the thing, people weeping at its base, small stuffed animals, and pictures and promises and prayers taped as high as mortal men could reach.

     It is bare of all that now. It simply stands like a dark sentinel.

     “The labyrinth was where she found me again,” Darcy explains and as Wanda watches more men arrive on the scene, all black-cloak clad, all with a faint sheen to them. They are dragging all sorts of things with them, bookshelves and desks, stained mattresses and rusting car doors. “Where she first made her… physical mark.”

     As they watch the assembled crowd builds a sort of maze around the tree. It’s eerie to watch, the way they move and work utterly silently, like a hive, each disjointed piece slotting into place and standing somehow without ropes or bindings and held up, it seemed, by will or magic alone.

     They wait, standing there in the chill, for what seems like hours after the maze has been constructed around them. In the distance there is fire and the smell of cooking food, and the rumble of a great number of voices some distance away.

     Then, as if called, Darcy walks by. She’s a different Darcy than the woman beside her – she’s younger, and plumper (though not by much), and there’s an innocence to her that her Darcy does not have. And, most obviously, her wrist and neck are absent the curling lines Wanda had unconsciously always associated with Darcy.

     This Darcy moves as if stoned… or bespelled. She’s drunk or high, and giddy and laughing. Wanda knows not what this younger Darcy sees, but when Hel eases out of one of the walls and begins stalking her, Wanda’s heart leaps into her throat. She helplessly reaches out a hand to the pair as if to stop what she knows had happened, and her Darcy, the present Darcy gently pressed her down using two fingers against her wrist.

     “What’s done is done,” she says simply as they watch Hel lean over and begin murmuring into the younger Darcy’s ear. There’s the faintest flash of green magic – familiar green magic – and then Loki is across the way, frightened and calling to the younger Darcy, urging her to stop.

     “He tried to save me,” her Darcy sighs. “Loki is always trying to save me.”

     “Maybe you should let him some time,” Wanda can’t help biting out as Hel’s curved claws curl around Darcy’s wrist. “Maybe you wouldn’t have… no… I’m sorry. I… this wasn’t your fault. You were a victim here.”

     “It was and it wasn’t,” Darcy says, shrugging. “And nearly everyone in the city was a victim at this point in time. Loki really fucked New York up. Just because he did it under duress doesn’t make the reality of it go away. He fucked up the city, he fucked up Selvig and Clint, and just because I love him and can forgive him, doesn’t mean that he expects anyone else to. Even when we’re not responsible for our actions, we still have to carry those burdens, our sins, around on our shoulders for the rest of our lives. How does Natasha put it? Our ledgers are red? Even if it’s not entirely our faults, we still mark down that red, and all we can do is hope and pray that we have enough black to break even, or even better, offset the red. But that red will never fully go away. You can’t erase it or burn it or-“

     She’s gasping now, tears flowing silently down her cheeks and Wanda gathers Darcy into her arms.

     “This is all my fault,” Darcy whispers into Wanda’s neck and even her tears are icy, sliding down Wanda’s collar and slipping into the curve of her cleavage. “I did this, Wanda. If I hadn’t been so damned _weak_ and sad and damaged and lonely… this never would have happened. People… good people… never would have died. And now… and now there are who knows how many gods using this damned tree as a conduit to come here and…”

     She sobs again, harder, and Wanda can no longer support even Darcy’s bare weight. They stumble to the ground, Darcy weeping, Wanda shushing her and rocking her and they lay on the cold grass for what seems like an age as Darcy lets go of all the stress and suffering and sorrow that she’s carries for so long on her shoulders alone. She cries and, after a time, Wanda is helpless but to weep with her. They lay and they weep and smoke from the bonfire nearby curls across the moon, hazing over the clean white curve it like a widow’s veil… or a shroud.

     In time, their weeping slows… stops… and Wanda stays silent, just holding the older woman to her, thinking of Pietro and how he’d looked when Steve had leapt into the hole Tony and Thor and dug with lasers and brute strength. How Steve had punched that coffin once, cracking it wide open, and how the boy Peter had his hands on her shoulders, as if he expected her to throw herself into the hole after Pietro, after Steve. As if Darcy had been wrong.

     He’d been delirious, parched, undernourished… but alive. There were a scattering of metal bits beneath him, the remnants of the bullets that had been meant to kill him. Steve had brought them out of the hole after carefully handing Pietro up to Tony and Thor and Clint, and to Bruce to slide the IV into Pietro’s veins and Natasha to set back the slow mass of red tape. She’d slapped those bullet pieces out of Steve’s hand, right back into the coffin, and then spit after them.

     Captain America had nodded once. Steve, of all people, understood.

     But that had been then and this was now and Wanda fears for the woman for whom she’d willingly take a bullet for. Pietro still hasn’t spoken to Darcy – she frightens him and all his brash arrogance of before has been tempered by months in horrible hibernation – but she knows he feels the same, even if he can’t even bring himself to be in the same room with her for more than a moment at a time.

     Above them the sky lightens, the stars begin to wink out one by one, and a figure approaches. It is Loki and Wanda heaves a sigh of relief.

     “I thought you’d never find us,” she chides him, but gently.

     “There was a lot to wade through,” he admits kneeling down. “I remember this place.”

     Darcy is asleep on Wanda’s shoulder and Wanda slowly eases up, Loki’s large hands taking Darcy’s weight off of her. He carries her as a bride, curling her into his arms, and brushes a soft, sweet kiss across her forehead.

     “Darcy said that you tried to save her.”

     “I did,” he admits, eying the large twisted branch above them with distaste. “There wasn’t much I could do at the time though. Send illusions. Communicate sometimes. She was set as the guard on my cell but we didn’t speak often then, not in person. We were joined in our dreams, mostly. Sharing memories.” His expression is rueful. “It’s how we fell in love.”

     “Romantic,” Wanda says.

     “Or tragic,” he adds but he’s smiling. “To never truly know the other’s touch… not until… well, I literally died before we ever actually held hands in the flesh.”

     “That’s…” Wanda is flummoxed.

     “Complicated,” he finishes with a laugh.

     “So how do we get out of here?” she asks and Loki indicates a door in the maze just two yards ahead of them. It hadn’t been there a moment before.

     “Loki, what is happening?” Wanda whispers.

     “Darcy’s breaking apart,” he says. It’s a simple statement, calm and cool, but has a ring of truth to it. “You both are, honestly. The two of you have been comatose for two weeks, Wanda.”


	21. Chapter 21

 

     “There’s no way out but through,” Loki says, shifting Darcy close into his arms, pressing her tightly against his chest. “We have to finish her journey.”

     “I hate the sound of this plan,” Wanda admits, wrapping her arms around herself, palms gripping her elbows. “This… this can only end badly.”

     “Perhaps,” Loki agrees, tension crinkling in the corners of his eyes and fresh lines bracketing the edges of his mouth. He looks, in that moment, old. Older than he should.    

     “Well, feet,” Wanda mutters, “let’s get going.”

     When they enter the pleasant little cottage, Wanda is at first relieved. She thinks perhaps that it is a place Darcy must have visited at some point, perhaps during her wanderings with Jane. It isn’t until Loki goes pale and wide-eyed that she realizes the shape of the walls, can trace out the furniture where before – to her – there had been burned out husks and lumps.

     “The cottage,” she surmises and when Loki nods, she groans. “Really going down the road of all your greatest hits, huh, Darcy?” she asks the unconscious woman.

     The door opens and Darcy enters. She’s plumper than now, but bears a few of the silver-white scars, though not as many. The most obvious is the one bracketing her wrist, when she lifts a hand to push back a fall of her black hair, her ugly, misshapen sweater slides back to the elbow, revealing the lacework monstrosity.

     “This is the best place for you,” Natasha is saying, gently nudging Darcy further into the chilly little cabin. “It’s off the record, but it belongs to a trusted member of SHIELD, so you’ll be able to rest and recuperate here without interference.”

     “You mean without Loki knowing where I am,” Darcy said flatly. “Where is he?”

     “We need you to stay put. This will report your location to SHIELD at all times,” Natasha said, ignoring Darcy’s jibe, kneeling down and clasping a metal cuff around Darcy’s ankle. Darcy’s expression twisted, aggravated, but she did nothing, allowing the intrusion. “You are free to wander the surrounding land, obviously, but not wander the village. It’s really too far to walk to anyway. Staying out of the house for too long a period of time will be reported as suspicious activity.”

     “Great, so I’m on house arrest in the middle of buttfuck, nowhere, population: goat. Just great,” Darcy muttered.

     Natasha continued, unperturbed. “There’s appropriate clothing in the armoire and closet. Lots of books and movies, some music, probably not to your taste, but I made sure they located and included an ipod in your bags with your full library on it. It took some digging and it turned out that Jane had the old one; she didn’t want to give it up until we told her it was for you, to make sure we had everything you’d need.”

     Darcy snorts again, turning her face to the window.

     Natasha waits a beat, then continues. “There’s no television reception in the area, and this cottage doesn’t have a phone, but there’s a satellite internet connection. Tony had help hired in from the village, a lady named Edith. She’ll come by on a regular basis to bring food and you can make reasonable requests that she’ll do her best to accommodate.”

     She has finally reached the end of her introduction, it seems, and when Darcy nods dumbly and curls her arms around herself, Natasha nods once, lays her hand on Darcy’s shoulder, and says, “I’ll come visit at least once. This isn’t a prison, Darcy.”

     Silence. Natasha leaves and once she’s gone, Darcy shivers and says to the empty cottage, “Could’ve fooled me.”

     They watch as Darcy putters a bit. She lights a fire but lets it die down without feeding it. Slowly, as night falls, she begins looking a bit peaky and wan. Loki moves over to the couch and lays his insensate bundle on the cushions as past-Darcy takes some crackers from the pantry and wanders around, exploring her new digs while nibbling.

     “Are you seeing this?” Wanda asks when the black fog begins curling across the floor.

     “Hel,” Loki says simply and his face is drawn tight. Wanda has fought with the man long enough at this point to see that he’s furious and horrified all at once, though his face is impassive on the surface. He stands in front of sleeping Darcy as if his presence would keep her from being touched in the past.

     The Darcy-that-was eventually moves to the kitchen and makes a pot of tea. Neither Wanda nor Loki miss the way that a shadow figure, barely visible, all bones and sinew and inky blackness, caresses the pot while the water boils.

     “Don’t drink it,” Wanda urges that Darcy, but as the kettle whistles she pulls it off the hob and pours the steaming water over a mug full of tea leaves. Before she can lift the cup to her lips, though, there is a knock at the door. Outside the sun is setting and Wanda feels immense relief when Darcy sets down the mug, tea within untouched, to answer the door.

     “Hello, lass!” exclaims a familiar voice on the doorstep as Fionnula greets Darcy. “I’m your neighbor, Fionnula.”

     Darcy mouths the name and the old woman laughs cheerfully. “It’s a mouthful, I know.”

     “I didn’t know anyone lived out here.”

     The woman fairly twinkles at her. “There are quite a number of us, if you look in all the hidey-holes.”

     “Darcy. Darcy Lewis,” Darcy introduces herself and, after a beat, offers her hand to shake.

     “Hmm,” the old woman says, holding onto Darcy’s hand a touch too long. Though Darcy-who-was can’t see it, both Wanda and Loki watch as magic, pale gold and warm, curls up Darcy’s arm and lights her torso from within, glowing brighter at her belly. “Well then, isn’t that a thing,” Fionnula says after a moment, gently disentangling their hands and glancing quickly to Darcy’s midsection before smiling brightly again. “I’m glad I put together a basket for you, lass. You’re looking a mite peaky.”

     “Just a bit sick, I’m sure. I was on a plane for awhile, did a lot of traveling lately, and was in a kind of quarantine for a couple of weeks, that always messes with me.” Darcy pauses, as if realizing what she just said could be construed wrong, and rushes to assure the old woman. “I’m fine, by the way! They couldn’t find anything wrong with me, mostly just had a bunch of questions about… my traveling companion. But, you know, better safe than sorry. Or something.”

     “Hmmm,” Fionnula says noncommittally, and hefts her large basket into Darcy’s arms. “Well, then, m’dear, there’s fresh bread in here, some honey from my boy Bran’s hives, some of the late season vegetables – pickles and the like, you see – a crock of my famous whipped butter, and some jam.” She hesitates and then, eying the lacework silvery scars on Darcy’s wrist, says, “You planning on staying her awhile, Darcy m’dear?”

     She laughs and it’s clearly bitter. “Honestly, Fionnula? I have no clue. I had a boyfriend that my… family… didn’t approve of. So I’m here until they decide to take me out of storage.” She chuckles harshly. “Not like I had much choice. I kind of got bundled out here without a whole lot of say in the matter.”

     Neither Wanda nor Loki miss the way Fionnula’s gaze flicks to Darcy’s midsection again and Wanda remembers the harsh way the woman had glared at them in the fen, the way she’d spit that Darcy wasn’t the first girl to be sent to the ass-end of nowhere to birth a bastard. She can see that conclusion being made before her eyes and it’s a bizarre feeling, seeing aggravation and pity and banked fury on Darcy’s behalf form itself within a near-stranger’s eyes.

     “Well, then, Darcy m’dear, I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Fionnula confides, “out here, we’re like family. You stay here, you’ll likely be folded in with the rest of us. We all watch out for one another, aye? I’ll be back in a day or so, and we’ll talk again. I’ll bring you some of my tea, we’ll have a natter.” She turns to walk away, was two steps down the stairs, and pauses on the last step. “Make sure you eat that fruit and pickles sooner rather than later. And I’ll have one of my boys bring you some fresh caught fish tomorrow or the day after. Fish oil is good for the brain, don’t ya know.”

     “I think I heard that?” Darcy says but she’s confused.

     “You’re a growing girl,” Fionnula assures her. “Nothin’ wrong with a bit of crispy fried fish.”

     “You don’t have to go to all that effort. There’s a lady who’s supposed to come by and bring me things.”

     “Edith, yes. I know her of old. She’s a dear, but she buys all her things from the store. Sometimes the old ways are better, dear. Don’t you fret. Fionnula’s here to look after you, now.”

     Darcy smiles and it’s the first real smile Wanda has seen on her face since before her father-memory. “You’re sweet,” she says and, impulsively, leans forward and hugs her. “Thank you.”

     “You rest, lass. And light a fire! Draw those drapes! It gets cold out here at night!”

     “Yes ma’am,” Darcy chuckles and Fionnula putters away, leaving her with the overflowing basket and a confused but fond smile on her face.

     “That wasn’t so bad,” Wanda notes and Loki shakes his head.

     Darcy returns to her kitchen, sets aside the basket, and takes her tea. Wanda knows that this happened in the past, that she can’t stop what’s about to happen, and still she wants to smack the cup out of Darcy’s hands.

     Fixing herself a hunk of bread with jam and honey, Darcy nibbles her poor dinner and sips her tea. She eats a few pickles before putting them in the refrigerator, finishes her tea, and then looks at the fireplace for a long moment before shrugging her shoulders and wandering into a bedroom.

     She strips off her ugly sweater as she goes and Wanda can see that her color is already high and her eyes are already glazing over.

     “She was sick for nearly two months,” Loki said. “Fionnula was fairly direct about that.”

     They watch as a ghostly-shape of Darcy moves around the cottage, then another, then another, the layers of the woman-who-was leaving wisps like ghostly contrails behind her. Darcy curled on her side on the floor before the empty fireplace. Darcy curled in the corner of the couch with Fionnula beside her, the older woman urging Darcy to sip hot soup and Darcy vomiting up her offering shortly thereafter. Darcy bleeding and raving in the middle of the kitchen floor. Fionnula discovering her, wiping up the mess and bundling old kitchen towel between her legs before trying to lift her.

     Wanda’s heart lurches as she realizes this is when Darcy lost the baby. Fionnula pulls out a small phone, calls, and in this disjointed memory it’s as if Bran just appears, lifting Darcy like a child and carrying her into the bathroom.

     “Loki,” Darcy whispers to him. “Loki, you came.”

     “Of course,” Bran replies, shooting a panicked look to Fionnula who urges him to be kind, that Darcy is out of her mind, to not upset her further. “Of course I came. I would never leave you, love. I’ll always be here for you.”

     Beside her Loki growls but his face is anguished, and Wanda wonders if he is going to attempt to harm Bran when next they meet.

     The memories slowly begin to shift and settle, grow less disjointed. Darcy starts stepping out in a thin shift each night. The nights and days grow visibly colder around them, her breath goes white in the house but she is never clad in much at all and she never lights the fire unless Edith comes in and does so for her.

     The shadows begin to cover the floor, to crawl up the walls, to drip from the ceiling, and when the next clear, non-disjointed memory comes, Wanda and Loki are hovering protectively near the Darcy-that-is, horrified at the amount of death magic that she’d been exposed to.

     Darcy takes a walk one day, the first truly clear memory in what looks to be nearly two months, and meets with Fionnula again, this time on the path outside.

     It’s as if they’d never met before.

     Wanda and Loki can both see the resignation curling the corners of Fionnula’s mouth, but the old woman doesn’t tell Darcy that they’ve met one another time and time again at this point. She carries a small bag and, surprisingly, a small brass key. Tells Darcy about the panel in the walls, the name of the cottage, and leaves after warning Darcy away from the loch’s waters.

     Fionnula comes again, later, after Darcy’s weight has begun to slough off, brings another basket, though this one has odd-smelling tea in a tin.

     “Forgetfullness,” Loki says and Darcy drinks the tea and it’s as he said. She moves through her days in even more of a daze, drifting, sleeping, until the tea is gone and she breaks the jug that held her tea in a fit of pique.

     But Loki and Wanda? They can see the shadow shape embracing her. They can see the arms curled around her waist, the hands pressing into her chest, the voice whispering sibilant hissing words into her ear.

     “What’s it saying?” Loki asks Wanda and Wanda moves closer. She doesn’t want to, but she does, because he looks like he’s about to vomit.

     “ _He doesn’t love you_ ,” Wanda repeats. Her gut is churning and she makes to fall silent but Loki shakes his head sharply, urges her to continue. Begrudgingly, Wanda does. “ _He never did_ ,” she continues on. “ _He used you, just as everyone has always used you. They’ve all forgotten about you. Right now they’re laughing, all of them together. Thor and Jane, the Black Widow and Hawkeye. Even Loki. He and his brother are laughing together, and none of them are even thinking about you._ ”

     “No,” the Darcy that was protests, hands pressed so hard against her temples that her pale skin bleeds nearly blue-white in the dim light. “They wouldn’t forget about me. Jane emailed me. They have surveillance on me.”

     “ _Take off the tracking cuff, then_ ,” Wanda says. “ _Make them come_.”

     The Darcy-that-was reaches down, there’s a flare of black magic, and the metal comes apart in her hands.

     The memory fades out along the edges and Wanda steps back. “No one came, did they?”

     “She wasn’t being watched through the cuff, so far as I know,” Loki replied softly.

     Time passed, more contrails of a ghostly Darcy, and when she sleeps - not in the first bedroom, but now in the master, so close to the place Wanda now knows is the entryway to the death-room, absorbing more and more of the death-magic in her sleep - she is so pale and white and still it’s as if Darcy has already died.

     Then, a figure in the kitchen. A Loki-who-was, looking prim and put together, especially in comparison to Darcy’s sick stillness. They watch as he takes care of her – warms the house, cleans the broken glass off the kitchen floor.

     “I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Loki says softly, watching how they sit together on the couch, how the warmth and light slowly fill Darcy back up, like warm water poured into a chilled glass, filling her with heat. “It was… difficult magic, and it took my mother helping to make it happen. Everyone was so busy with, well, _you_ , that I was able to slip away.”

     Darcy is yelling at then-Loki now, cursing him for soothing his own conscience when she was banished to the middle of nowhere. He looks uncomfortable and she stalks to the bathroom. She showers and then strips the sheets off her bed, airing out the house as best she can without opening the windows and letting in even more cold. Darcy-that-was is filled with energy and purpose, the house is warm for once, and when she returns to the living room, Loki-that-was is still there, obviously brooding.

     They fight again, Darcy bitter over Jane not contacting her and begging to know what she’d done wrong. Loki explaining that it wasn’t her fault, and that she is supposed to be safe and protected in the little cottage, that it was his punishment for being away from her is penance. She doesn’t have the space to reply when he’s gone, the spell ended, and beside her the current Loki watches as, at first Darcy stares where he had been for a long, long time. Then the shadow comes again, wrapping arms around her, and she moves like a clockwork girl, finding a bucket, filling it, dousing the fire until smoke fills the room. She doesn’t cough, breathes it in, turns off the radiator, and then flings the scarf Loki left behind in a basket in the corner.

     The memory fades out as the computer begins beeping. The last they see of it is Jane appearing on the screen, Darcy sitting down to speak with her, and the strange flare of magic in the corner where the cameras once watched her.

 


	22. Chapter 22

 

     “Don’t,” Darcy says, sitting up and grasping Loki loosely by the wrist. She is tired now, bone weary, and tries to remember a time when she didn’t feel thus, a time when she had the energy to move or dance or sing, to bop around Jane’s lab and let her fingers fly over her keyboard. When getting tipsy on the roof sounded like the best idea ever.

     The last time she can remember being free is after Hel had first contacted her in New York. The way she ran, arms pumping, legs barely connecting to the earth, the wind in her hair and the smell of the damaged city all around her, filling her nose, watering her eyes. Loki in his cage.

     Had that really been the last time she hadn’t felt truly tired? The last time she felt truly free to live her life as she saw fit? When running from the problems that she dumped in Hel’s lap?

     _There are no problems in the grave_ , Hel murmurs from inside Darcy’s mind. A whisper amid whispers. Darcy bites back the urge to scream. She can see herself, blue-lipped and dying, laying her hand flat against the divider that lay between the magical circle in the basement and the living sections of the cottage.

     Daniel Blackwood is in the basement. He hasn’t changed much between before Loki died and was taken by Hel and this moment that awake Darcy – the now-Darcy – watches with mounting horror. She can’t remember this, though she knows it must have happened; her begging for Loki, the realization that she was going to die there, alone and forgotten, and letting go. Going to the Blackwoods. Abandoning all hope. Entering the basement.

     “Don’t go down there,” she tells Wanda and Loki. “Don’t watch.”

     But they do. Of course they do. Darcy stands, clinging to the wall at the top of stairs that once were, stairs that are now burned black and covered with drifts of snow, as the two magic-users drift down the stairs-that-were.

     Darcy-that-was, tired-Darcy, abandoned-Darcy, misbegotten-Darcy, steps in the middle of the circle and Hel is holding her so closely. Her arms are like shadows, buried in Darcy’s skin, there are flickers of black static snapping across Darcy’s living flesh, and Hel rests her head on Darcy-that-was’s shoulder, whispering, whispering, whispering.

     Poison words drip from her tongue, slip into Darcy’s ears. That Darcy shivers and shakes, eyes open but unseeing, mouth open. Daniel leans forward and kisses her, slipping his tongue between her lips, wrapping long, lean fingers through her black curls and tugging her against him tightly. She doesn’t fight, she doesn’t even seem to notice what he’s doing to her; that Darcy is a living doll. Hel makes her move and shift, Hel is the one who eventually tugs Darcy’s body free and guides her to kneel in the middle of the carved circle in the floor. It is Hel who kneels face to face with Darcy, whose head has dipped forward, who is crying slow, cool tears.

     The magic begins and it is awful.

     Figures moving, figures dancing and spinning and chanting around her in a sick parody of the bonfire that brought back the sun. There is purple-red light hanging in the shadows, light that hurts to look at for more than a moment, light that shouldn’t be and sears the eyes, leaving afterimages stamped with faces like shrieking souls, all hollow blackness for eyes and torn apart mouths in the dark. Suffering.

     When Daniel thrusts the sword through Darcy’s ribs Wanda screams. Loki whirls and stares at Darcy-that-is with eyes huge and hollow and horrified. She smiles at him weakly and presses her palm to her chest where she can feel that which had been hidden, that which had been carefully wrapped up in the black of her memory and buried, deep, deep, deep. The last secret Hel kept from her. Hel and Fionnula and Bran. Darcy can feel the open, jagged edges of the wound, where Daniel had vindictively twisted the sword on the way out. Can feel the black poison in her veins, from where he’d coated the blade.

     That Darcy-that-was is crying, tears sliding silently down her cheeks and Wanda is crying with her, on her knees in the dirt and reaching for that damaged, dying girl as if she can change everything that was by sheer will alone.

“Loki,” past-Darcy mouths but the sword has pierced a lung as well as her heart. Blood bubbles out of her mouth, coating her chin, sliding down her front. She tries again. “L-loki.” It comes out on her last breath, but it is still barely a whisper. There is a faint spray of crimson droplets that cover the stomach of Daniel’s shirt, a pattern of loss and betrayal.

Daniel grips the hilt of the sword that she’s trying to push from her chest and puts a foot on Darcy’s chest. “Loki gave you to us. He never loved you. Not like we do. Stop fighting, mouthpiece. You belong to Death now,” he says, and _shoves_.

     “She wasn’t lying when she said I died,” Darcy says softly, shrugging and holding up a hand to examine it. Her fingertips are shriveled, black beneath the nails, clotted with blood from where her hands had uselessly reached up and scrabbled to force the blade out of her heart, feeling the memory of its metal scraping her rib bones with a tug like an electric shock singing through her nerves. “That’s not something you generally get better from.”

 

 

     “I don’t understand,” Wanda says finally. She is shivering and Darcy guides her back upstairs. The memory is ending soon, she knows. They’ve reached the end of the line. Loki stands over the memory of Darcy as the death-worshippers leave the cottage. Leave her body cooling on the stone floor. Had let her bleed out and die.

     He stands vigil weeks too late.

     “What is there to understand?” Darcy asks and she is serious. So much makes sense now that didn’t make before. She really had been abandoned to her death, though not intentionally. She really had never left that blasted cottage alive.

     “Your chest wasn’t…” Wanda gestures weakly to Darcy’s shirt which is now black with rotten, old blood in the front, where the sword had severed her from everything she’d known before. “Bruce would’ve…”

     “Magic,” Darcy replied simply, rubbing her icy-fingers up and down her upper arms. She does this out of habit, not out of cold. Darcy has the sense that she’ll never be cold again. “Old magic. Crossroads magic.”

     “And… the other mouthpieces…” Wanda hesitates, chewing on her words. Loki is still down below, still standing beside the Darcy-that-was, weeping quietly over a lover he never knew was dead. One who died thinking that he didn’t love her. That he’d abandoned her.

     “They knew,” Darcy says simply. It is the truth, she knows, as true as the stars in the sky, as irrefutable as the death she can feel looming on the horizon, the Mad Titan who reaches for them with rough hands and a cursed heart. “They’ve always known.”

     _For one to walk within the light, another must walk the dark path_ , Hel whispers in her mind. Darcy yearns to tell her ‘mother’ to fuck off, to find a hole and bury herself so deep that they’d never hear from her again. It’s a childish urge. She’s dead. She should set aside childish things.

     _I love you, Darcy_ , Hel protests. _You are mine_.

     “I was my own,” Darcy says aloud and Wanda looks at her curiously but the memory is fading around them and they are in a place that is white and clean and empty in all directions. Loki kneels nearby, his hair dangling in his face, and Darcy feels for him, she really does. It’s not every day that you realize you proposed to a zombie, after all.

     In the back of her mind, Hel snorts and Darcy is mildly amused. It wasn’t a joke she’d share with Loki – it’s not that funny, for one, and two, it’s far too soon – but she was glad that someone could see the humor in the situation.

     In the distance there is a sound like an alarm going off – very shrill, but very, very quiet. It is life and warmth and all the things that Darcy realizes now that she was clinging to out of habit.

     “We’re in the medical ward,” she tells Wanda. “You should wake up or you’re going to be stuck in here with me.”

     “I can’t-“ Wanda protests. “I can’t _leave_ you.”

     Darcy kneels down and takes those slim, pretty hands in hers. Marvels at the strength in them. Wishes that she’d known this girl before… before everything. “You must. I need you to save him.” Darcy looks over her shoulder at Loki, who is as a ghost now, unmoving and still. Only the steady rise and fall of his shoulders betrays that he hasn’t followed his heart into the grave. “They’re going to unplug me soon, Wanda. You have to get him out of here. Both of you.”

     Tears are streaming down her face but Wanda nods. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, Darcy, for you.”

     “I’m glad I got to meet you,” Darcy says. “And when he tries to do something stupid you stop him. Promise me, Wanda. PROMISE ME.”

     “I won’t let him,” the witch swears and she’s sobbing now, shaking so hard, and she is so warm, so hot, so blazing with life and love and sacrifice and energy that it sears Darcy’s flesh and burns her retinas. “I’ll keep him safe.”

     “I’ll miss you,” Darcy whispers. “Tell him that I love him.”

     “He knows!” Wanda insists but the alarm is growing exponentially louder and Darcy hauls the small woman up by the elbows and shoves her at Loki. Wanda curls around his lithe body in a way that weeks ago would have had Darcy seeing red. When she thought she was still alive. When she had room for pettiness and jealousy.

     “I’m glad you are my friend,” Wanda tells her and Darcy smiles. “Me too,” she says and _shoves_ with the last bit of life she thought she had left inside her. An archway, huge as two doorways, country-columned and painted with faded, chipped white paint, appears behind the pair. It is just like the archway into the kitchen in the horrible house Darcy grew up in.

     _They are too good for this place_ , Darcy thinks and Hel agrees. Wanda hauls Loki, somehow, to his feet and only at the very last second as Wanda has him mostly through the archway do his eyes widen and wake, does he realize what is happening.

     Loki howls.

 

     And wakes.


	23. Chapter 23

 

     “You _lied_ to me,” Darcy murmurs as Hel steps up behind her, resting one clawed hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “You kept saying that you wouldn’t take me before my time, that you couldn’t take my soul because it belongs to another, and that you _liked_ me. But I’ve been dead for _months_!” Around them the whiteness has faded to the black River again, this time choked with souls. Diety Radio is turned down, however, very low, and the sobs and supplications are white noise like distant rapids, water boiling far away.

     “I don’t see how that is lying to you.” Hel steps around Darcy and Darcy is stunned to realize that the Death Goddess is beautiful. Her growth is complete, there is no smell of rot or decay, her gown is lovely and whole, her skin unblemished and perfect. She is so similar to Darcy as to be a mirror image. “I have not taken you, Darcy, for here you are.” Hel settles once more on the grass and runs her fingers through the icy rime, watching the bobbing bodies with an expression very close to boredom curling petulantly around her lower lip.

     “I’m dead!” Darcy snaps. She flops down to the grass beside Hel and also combs the grass. Her fingers encounter a stone and she plucks it up, meaning to fling it into the waves, but there is no free space to plunk it in, no inch, not even a centimeter. Just bodies piled on bodies, floating peacefully by. Irritated, Darcy drops the rock though part of her wants to fling it in Hel’s face. “If that’s not taking me then what is it?!”

     “Necessary,” Hel replies evenly. She picks up the stone and turns it in her hand, examining it. As Darcy watches, where Hel’s finger touches the rough spots smooth away, the jagged edges soften. “Twice-told sacrifice – first the fetus then yourself. How is that difficult to understand? A true sacrifice. But now your soul stands before me - as belligerent as always, I might add – unharmed and whole. You do not float in the River of Death; you have not reached Limbo or the resting place for your soul. I have not burned you out so that you cannot rejoin the cauldron and be reborn in due time. You still are, Darcy. It is not your time.”

     Darcy chokes, horror filling her throat. Of _course_ Hel would see it that way. Of course! To Hel, death was not an end, merely another step in the process, in the cycle. All her assurances, all her promises, were true… to her. But humans aren’t gods, and they’d relaxed their guard around Hel, believed her words were the same as theirs, that her meaning lined up with their beliefs. Her fingers spasmodically clutch the grass.

     They hadn’t asked the right questions!

     They hadn’t said the right words.

     A tear slips down Darcy’s cheek and she sobs just once before straightening her shoulders and glaring at the goddess. She jerks her chin at Hel. “So what happens now? You’ve got your body. What do you need me for?”

     “I will always need you, Darcy,” Hel says patiently as a mother explaining that school is non-negotiable each morning. “You are my mouthpiece. You are my supplicant. You are my daughter.”

     “I’d think a good mother wouldn’t kill her daughter just to take over her body,” Darcy retorts sharply.

     Hel smiles and it is a thin, ghostly thin, and sharp as a razor with blood beading across the edge. “You’d be surprised what so-called ‘good mothers’ do to their daughters every day, Darcy. The lessons they impart, never knowing. Not the lessons of their mouth, but the lessons of their intentions. Children learn best through example, yes?”

     Stiffly, Darcy turns her face away. Is it her imagination or is the dark river growing wider and darker? “I wouldn’t know, seeing as you _killed_ my kid.”

     “Your mother taught you selfishness,” Hel continues as if Darcy’s jab meant less than nothing to her, which was probably the case. “To fear and hate your curves and form. This was her intention. Unintentionally she taught you sacrifice and honor and kindness, for had she given those things freely to you, you would not have known that their cost can sometimes come so dear. Other mothers say with words, ‘Love yourself!’ and then treat their bodies as flawed, broken things, less than the temples they are. They pluck and shave and slather and paint and dye all in the name of looking younger, of avoiding the dreaded ‘ma’am’. And so their children grow believing that the only way to be a proper woman is to be beautiful, is to be thin, is to be perfect and pretty and soft and kind and if they are not this thing, this contrived thing, then they hate themselves, while women who are pretty and soft and kind are told that they are lesser for not also being intelligent or motherly or independent. These ‘good mothers’ teach their daughters that to be a woman is to be always flawed, never enough, for even when no other is shaming you, deep inside you are always shaming yourself. That is the price of womanhood, Darcy. Shame.”

     Darcy whimpers. She is crying and she hates herself a little for it. Hel’s words tear and rip at some hidden secret deep within her soul, some tender, fragile part of her that avoided the light at all cost.

     “There is no shame in what we do, Darcy,” Hel continues, rising now, watching the deepening, darkening River of Death with a perplexed expression on her face. “There is no sorrow. There is no pain. We are Death and we are proud and no ‘good mother’ or ‘nice guy’ can stand before us without quaking. We hold no shame, for there is no shame in death. We hold no expectation, for once a soul has rested in my river, they float until they reach their resting place, where they stay until they are needed once more. A life well lived, a life spent shitting all over others, they are the same to us, Darcy. This is the gift I’ve given to you. I suggest that you take it with two hands and quit your bitching.”

     Flushing, Darcy ducks her head and slowly rose to her feet. “That’s a lot of bodies,” she says after a long moment. They were clogging near the entrance, the cave mouth, Darcy realized, not entirely sure if she remembered this herself from her visit to find Loki or if this is some ancestral memory gifted from Hel herself.

     “Thanos has destroyed another planet,” Hel says baldly and her shoulders slump. “Look at them. See the ones who’ve been marked, here?” She gestures to her own forehead and Darcy spies a child floating by. There is a mark on his head, a smudge of gleaming white, just where Hel’s thumb had pressed.

     “Let me guess,” Darcy says and there is a tremor of rage beneath her words. “Before their time?”

     “Just so,” Hel agrees in a whisper. There is a torrent of bodies slowly rolling their way, stacked like cordwood as the waves struggle to carry them along. Thousands of men, women, children and more, gleaming light on nearly every face. “They go to the cauldron, most of them, but this will cause a deep wound,” Hel mutters and her fists clench spasmodically. “The cauldron cannot take much more of this. Enough simultaneous damage over and over again… it will crack! It will wound the stars themselves!”

     “I don’t understand,” Darcy urges Hel.

     “You don’t need to understand,” Hel says and her voice is bitter. “You hate me and what I stand for, what I do. You hate this duty that I’ve asked of you and you accepted. You think me a liar and a thief of life and love.”

     “Maybe I was wrong,” Darcy says and Hel, eyes still raging, stills. The goddess slowly turns and regards Darcy, looking for any sign of dishonesty or double dealing. There is none, for Darcy believes what she’s said. Believes it in her heart.

     “The soul cauldron,” Darcy says, drawing on what little she can remember from Hel herself, and from rummaging around in Hel as sometimes Hel rummaged around in her, “is where souls go to reincarnate? They drop off their memories and their lessons learned in life so life as a whole can learn the lesson and grow and improve?”

     “Just so,” Hel says softly, surprised.

     “But… if enough people are damaged in the same way…”

     “Too much salt spoils the soup.” Hel waves a hand at the gleaming tide before them. “Over and over again, he kills those with lessons yet to learn. A soul taken before their time is hesitant to enter the painful land of the living more than once, unless they’ve gotten something valuable out of their last visit.”

     “By killing all those people he’s making souls not want to reincarnate,” Darcy gasps, suddenly realizing why Hel is so agitated. “He’s throwing the cycle out of whack!”

     Hel nods. “You have the right of it, at last, Darcy. Now you understand. Death is painless. Living is hard, it’s the hardest thing a soul can do, for there is no growth without pain, no advancement without discomfort. To learn to walk, one must fall. To learn to run, one must fall harder. To learn to fly, you risk it all.”

     Darcy is crying openly now. “The stars will burn out.”

     “Just so.” Hel sags. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t kill him. I’ve tried.”

     Slowly, Darcy thinks of Stephen Strange, and his bauble. Of Loki and his howl. Of Thor, and Steve, and Bucky. Of Nodens and Bran.

     “I may have an idea,” she says.


	24. Chapter 24

Chapter 24

 

 

When Darcy opens her eyes, she is in the morgue.

She knows it is a morgue not by the TV-typical surroundings – the drawers, the icy air, the shining silver table with the drains and tubes and a shining curve of light hanging above it – but by the thin paper gown they have changed her into.

“Don’t even get a toe-tag to keep, what a rip off,” Darcy mutters, dimming her pain receptors and kicking at the glass box they have her in until she – like a thing from a horror movie - cracks the shell, a death-dragon breaking free of the hardened curve encasing it.

She does not bleed.

Darcy doesn’t do that anymore.

She vaguely hears the alarms go off. Senses them, really, more than hears. The lights are pressure in the distance, the noise is a whisper in the back of her mind – faint, echoing. Any moment the door will burst open and people will pour into the room. Men, women… even a thing that is neither male nor female though it has taken the semblance of a man.

Darcy reaches up and brushes the fall of her black hair, can feel the traces of Wanda touching her, the echo of her brush, the dried salt-tears that dripped from Wanda’s chin into her hair as she washed Darcy’s body, prepped Darcy’s body. As she mourned.

Slowly Darcy realizes that the camera must be trained on her. She tilts her head to the side and slowly craned backward, listening to the corners, feeling for that pulse, that missing pulse, the same as the electric thrum in cottage in the middle of nowhere, the place where she’d died.

_Where she’d died_.

Darcy’s hand reached out, fingers stretching, hand grasping, and she slipped her intent into the meat of existence, found the thrum, and _yanked_. The cleverly hidden camera sputtered to a stop, circuits fried, components melting together, smoldering and smoking.

There.

Better.

Darcy ran a hand down her side, felt the paper crinkle beneath her palm, felt the unpleasant give of her cold flesh. This wouldn’t do. This wasn’t the armor she’d need. This wasn’t warm and soft, comforting.

The door doesn’t burst open as she expected.

It opens slowly.

It is not Loki, who she’d expected, or Stark in his armor, who was her next guess. It wasn’t the Captain – earnest eyed – or the Widow or Vision or Wanda or even the Soldier.

It was Sam.

Meat walking, basically.

“Hey,” he says softly, hands held out as if she were a wounded animal that might strike at him. “Hey, Darcy?”

The blackness flowing within her, ebbing and tugging. Whispering.

“You need to leave, Sam,” Darcy says, just as quietly. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Okay, okay, I can do that,” the Falcon says, stepping back. “But, see, I can’t let you leave.”

Darcy blinks at him, long and slow. She knows what she looks like from the outside – can essentially see herself out of two sets of eyes, those of death which are everywhere and are everything, and those of the human woman, Darcy, who is faintly horrified at how much skin she’s showing and how cold her amalgamation is being to Sam.

“You’re only trying to help,” Darcy says and there is more humanity in her tone. She pities the Darcy-that-was. To be alive is so confusing and tiring. “If you wish to help bring me clothing. And then get out of my way.”

“Sure!” Sam says, straightening. “I can do the first bit, no problem. But I can’t.”

Darcy thrusts her hand toward the table in the middle of the room and Sam flinches. At first there is nothing and he relaxes but then, slowly, the rust begins to creep like fingers of lacy death across the surface of the table. It grows pitted and dark, the gleaming silver no longer beautiful and awful all at once.

Now it is simply awful.

“All things die, Sam Wilson,” Darcy says as the legs begin to buckle and bend on the table, twisting out of shape and collapsing in on themselves. The tabletop, more rust than surface now, crumbles apart and the whole thing falls inward with a brittle crash. “Please bring me clothing.”

Sam swallows hard. “You must be really frightened,” he begins and then stops when Darcy smiles.

“I could have used your help when I was young,” she tells him simply. “Before all this began. Someone to listen. A hero. Your help comes too late now. Thanos is nearly here.”

There’s a tap at the door and Wanda enters slowly. She is smiling querulously, nervous and edgy but still happy, and she clutches a paper bag. Inside Darcy can smell the sweater, nubby and too large, stretched out of shape, with specs of the desert still embedded in the deepest fibers. Can scent the starlight and the intense summer heat, the coffee and the Icees and the poptarts and the toast. There are jeans in the bag, heavy and thick, and a bra, and underwear. Cotton socks, bleached but not dyed. New. A pair of leather boots. Old. And something else.

“Take the tracking chips out of the clothing,” Darcy sighs and waits while Wanda and Sam first exchange confused expressions and then Sam’s lips tighten and he looks to where the camera had been, glaring for the briefest instant.

“The camera is gone,” Darcy points out. “I killed it.”

“We didn’t know,” Wanda offers.

“I am aware,” Darcy replies. “Fry the trackers, Wanda.”

The Scarlet Witch does as she is instructed and Darcy can hear the tiny electric pops come from the bag of clothing, smell the burned silicone. It was a remarkable piece of technology, both no larger than a key on a keyboard and cunningly hidden in the heels of her boots.

Darcy stripped down without a care and then clad herself in the warmth and memories of her human life.

“Come on if you’re coming,” she said simply, walking past them and striding down the hall. Four rooms down and a door burst open and the Captain steps out, the Soldier at his heels. She looks at them and snaps her fingers. “‘Come on, losers,’” she called, a bit of the old Darcy surfacing in her voice, “we’re going to save the world.”

She finds Tony and Thor at the end of the hall, Widow and the Hawk beside them. Darcy does not stop, simply strides for the stairwell and when Thor moves to step in front of her she _shutter-steps_ , a flick of movement through time and space, and is past him and still walking without pause.

“What the fuck?!” she hears Tony say and Darcy smiles, shoving open the bar of the emergency exit and pounding down the stairs.

She can _taste_ the dropship coming.

Can hear the incoming screams.

She has to hurry.

To Central Park.

To the blackened branch of the World Tree.

To Thanos.

“Grab your gear if you’re planning on fighting!” she yells over her shoulder to the assembled warriors. “He’s bringing an army!”

Murmurs behind her – fear, dismay, confusion – but Widow is the first to listen. She sprints away, toward the weapon lockers. The Captain and Soldier pound after her a moment later and Darcy can hear Tony calling for his suits.

Wanda is at her elbow.

“Darcy?” she asks.

“Shh,” Darcy soothes her friend. “You think I’d let you all die alone?”

It stops Thor cold. “What do you mean?!” he demands and Darcy stops on the stairwell. They are still twenty stories up. Thor is four steps higher than she is and so Darcy is forced to crane her head far back to see all of him.

“You look better with short hair,” she says softly. “Though I like you with both your eyes.”

There is a long pause and then Wanda, with voice trembling, whispers, “What happened to you?”

Darcy smiles sweetly. “I was shown all that was, is, and ever will be,” she replies with a shrug. Then she holds out her hand, pale and white, blemish-free and bloodless. “In all the realms, in all the possibilities, in all the lives and deaths and joy and in sorrow.” Her fingers tremble as she gently strokes a wisp of hair off of Wanda’s face. “In one universe you have children. Twins. They are beautiful and strong and talented. In another you are forced to pull the Mind Gem out of Vision in order to save the universe… and it does nothing. You kill the one person you love most to save everyone and fail anyway. In another everyone must die, over and over again, half of everyone, half of infinity… the soul cauldron glutted and overflowing... and it is just a step to turning back time and beginning again and making it not be.”

“I don’t understand,” Wanda whispered. She is shaking and tears are leaking down her face, dripping to the concrete stairwell with plops Darcy can hear, can taste in the air. Her sorrow tastes like wildflowers.

“I don’t expect you to,” Darcy replies and pulls the witch in for a hug. “I just expect you to help me.”

When the woman has finally stilled, when her trembling has subsided, Darcy drops her arms. “Thank you,” she said simply, “for being my friend.”

When they reach the lobby the others are waiting, stern-eyed and tight-lipped. Loki is among them and Darcy doesn’t hesitate to walk straight for the man that her human body had loved so much.

“You’re dead,” he says stiffly. “You’re not Darcy.”

“Yes and no,” she chuckles. “On both counts. I am dead, yes, but my soul still is. This body is a container, you see. A flawed one, now, but necessary. For the sacrifice. To bring Hel into this world. To rebirth the gods.”

“Yeah, about that,” Tony’s mechanized voice drawls, “would you be talking about the same gods who are having a regular Woodstock in Central Park right about now? All over the news? Buncha naked folks dirty dancing ‘round the-“

“The World Tree,” Darcy supplied softly. “And yes. Those gods.”

Loki looks down on her and Darcy reaches up, draws him down, licks his lower lip and takes his kiss as her due. He is shivering in her arms and, after a moment, he moans and pulls her to him, giving up and sinking his fingers into her hair, clutching Darcy close.

“Jesus Christ, isn’t she rotting?” demands Stark.

They ignore him.

“I have always loved you,” Darcy says when she pulls back. “Before I ever knew you, I loved you. I need you to remember that.” Her palm is cold against his cheek and she can see Loki’s expression shutter.

“You’re going to do something stupid,” he accuses her and Darcy feels her smile curl slowly across her face.

“It’s like you know me,” she teases him and drops her hand, striding out the door. “Come along, children! We’ve got an everything to save!”


	25. Chapter 25

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

 

The sky is black outside, velvet and stretching from horizon to horizon, speckled with drifts of stars like snowflakes. Darcy knows now how many of those stars have life that circles them, sucking planets with greens and browns and blues, some that are empty of all but plants and some that are covered entirely with buildings fashioned at the heart of worlds.

Darcy can hear the songs of those stars, some winking out, some fading, some being reborn from pressure and heat and the birthpains of black holes, forcing existence into being for the sheer fuck of it all. She doesn’t have the words, her mortal mind can’t grasp the intricacies of it all, and that clinging bit of Hel needs no words for these interstellar births and the blasphemy of their creation.

All she knows is death.

Darcy walks and behind her walks her lover, Loki. Behind him, his brother, and the others, the warriors and soldiers the living and the never alive. In the corner of her eye she can spot the slow dart of the boy – Pietro – he doesn’t know she can see him through Hel. He is bored but also anxious. He knows that they stride toward death.

He’s seen death firsthand.

He can taste it now.

The Winter Soldier has the same set of enhanced senses, his gift from Nodens, and Darcy sees his reflection as his eyes track Pietro, faster than sight for the others, faster than sound.

 _Speedsters_ , Hel spits at the back of Darcy’s mind and she nearly laughs aloud.

 _We need him_ , she replies and can taste Hel’s disdain, dandelion wine and burnt ends, the smell of cut grass and billowing smoke. Death in shining silver, STARK emblazoned on the side of a missile. The deaths of Pietro’s parents, Wanda’s parents. Their new rebirth.

They walk and walk and walk and when they reach Central Park there are gods everywhere. Old gods and young gods, tired gods and energetic gods. Gods of animals and gods of nature and life and birth and death and fate and justice and on and on and on.

Eyes turn, mouths open.

Most fall to their knees.

Even gods can die.

“What. The. Fuck?” Darcy hears behind her and can feel the thin, frightened vibrations of Stark staring out into those rapt faces. Can hear Widow swallow hard, feels the quicksilver brush of the archer’s fingers caress his bowstring, can taste the creaking sweat cupped in the Captain’s palm.

They stare out into the mass of men and women, most of whom have been hollowed out to make way for the gods, and they are afraid.

Darcy laughs and strides to the closest god. The flesh is that of a banker, the stench of old money and older drugs clinging to his fingers even now, weeks later. His teeth are yellow but his eyes are entirely white.

His hands, however, are strong. His arms stronger.

She leans down and kisses him full on the mouth. There is movement behind her, fretting from the peanut gallery, but Loki is still and quiet. There is no room for jealousy in this moment.

“Alexiares,” Hel whispers, “I have need of you. Will you stand with me?”

The god of fortification grins those yellow teeth and howls to the sky. “FOR HEL! FOR DEATH! PROTECT THE LAND! PROTECT THIS REALM!”

He bangs his fist on his collar across his chest and throws up the chant. The others pick up the cry and gods are leaping to their feet, plucking weapons from the ether, pounding and screaming and crying and calling. They chant because they know either they are with her…

Or they are against her.

Slowly Darcy turns to the men and women behind her, the whites of their eyes thin rings, teeth unconsciously bared, stinking of yellow-sweat and black fear.

“SURROUND THE WORLD TREE!” she says flatly and though all is din and chaos the call goes out and the bodies of the men and women used and abused, stripped clean and hollowed out, emptied like cups of spilled honey mead, once sweet and now sour and thick, circle and move and do as she says.

For she is Hel.

She is Death.

“Thank you,” Hel tells Darcy as the Green Man approaches. In his arms he holds a body; it is empty, it is flesh alone.

The flesh is beautiful.

Hair as black as the velvet sky. Lashes thick and long curled over high cheekbones. A beestung mouth. A figure exquisitely curved.

“You’ll keep your promise?” Darcy within Hel asks. “You swear?”

“I swear, daughter mine,” Hel says and slips from Darcy’s flesh. It is a glimmer, nothing more, the faintest light that goes from one girl, now tired and bleeding and crumpling to the ground, into the new body, the new flesh, the reborn flesh of the goddess.

Loki catches her.

“That,” she tells him seriously, “sucked.”

He swallows hard. “Darcy?”

“Hey honey,” she whispers, brushing one trembling hand across his face, “I’m home.”

There is a shadow across the moon. Sharp as a blade, curling from nothing into something, blinking viciously into existence and Darcy, clutching her bruised and aching ribs, laughs. “Don’t get too excited. We’ve got guests.”

Around them the gods pound and scream and turn their faces to the sky where the ships appear, one by one, blinking into being, blotting out the star-filled sky.

In the Green Man’s arms, Hel opens her eyes.

“Time to end this,” she says.

And the gods howl.


	26. Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

 

 

 _It was_ , Stark would think later, _something out of epic mythology_. The band of warriors – mortal for the most part – standing amid the trees and water and stone, heads tilted back, mouths slightly open, as the sky darkened above them. Midday blotted out as vessel after vessel blocked the sky… an armada of pain and suffering.

“Thanos,” breathed Darcy and he looked over to the young woman, the girl who had carried death within her flesh – though didn’t they all, really? – for too long at this point.

Nat had said it best. They’d screwed her over. No one had meant to, they all had their own shit to deal with, but she’d gotten lost in the shuffle. They’d all turned their face to the greater good, convinced themselves that they needed to pay attention to the bigger picture, and in the interim she’d fallen through the cracks. If she’d been a lesser woman, a more selfish soul, she could’ve walked away. Would’ve walked away.

Stark had no illusions that he probably would have if he’d been in her shoes – just say “fuck it” to all the assholes who’d abandoned him in the middle of snow-struck, bumfuck nowhere. Standing back and observing the way she and Loki circled one another, the way they watched one another, had been eye-opening. As much as he loathed Loki, he’d begun to understand the emo little shit a bit better, seeing him through Darcy’s eyes. She was a clear-sighted when it came to the ex-God of Mischief and Lies as anyone else and still she accepted him.

Loved him.

They’d failed her. Perfect Steve. Himself. Natasha and Clint and Strange and even Peter, for all that he was just a kid. They’d all failed the young woman with the night-black hair and goddess seething beneath her skin. And she’d refused to return the favor.

She stood there now, surrounded by the shells of those who’d once been normal men and woman – here an obvious soccer mom, there a meth addict, over there a sloe-eyed beauty, nearby an obvious villager from the Black Panther’s people. That one had eyes that flashed gold and green, teeth too white and sharp.

He wondered if the King of Wakanda knew his Panther God was stalking nearby.

He hoped not.

The deities worked with disturbing rapidity – a few were like Pietro, swift of foot, just flashes and a puff of wind – carrying messages back and forth, moving nearly as one, guided by the Wall Street douche that Darcy had named Alexiares. The god of fortification.

Some of the gods were unnervingly strong. Not Thor strong or Cap strong, no… stronger. Punch the ground and tug up a spur of land strong. Stark watched - gaping and feeling useless - as these men and women surrounded the tree in fortifications of earth and rock, a cage of nature hewn with fingers and will alone. They sang as they worked, in voices young and old, strong and weak, cracked and thin or booming and resonating. The song set his sensors to shivering uncomfortably in his suit – there was more to it than just their words and voices intermingling.

Beneath him Cap winced and followed behind Bucky, who’d approached the one called Nodens. Stark realized that he wasn’t the only one to hear the odd vibrations in the music.

“It’s the oldest magic,” Thor said softly and Stark’s sensors picked up the near whisper. “The magic of human song.”

“Go,” Darcy replied. “They need you. They need you both.”

Loki and Thor exchanged a look – determination, perhaps, or dismay – and joined the others, being guided by Alexiares to make choke points into the park. Why they were bothering when Thanos could simply overrun the world in countless locations, Stark didn’t know, but the gods for some reason had picked the place to stand their ground.

“Can he, though?” Stark asked. “FRIDAY? Are there any of Thanos’s ships elsewhere in the world?”

“No, Boss,” she replied after a beat. “The armada is concentrated here, over New York.”

“Why is it always New York?” he asked, bemused. “You’d think invasions would prefer a bit less choked scenery. Nepal is nice this time of year.”

JARVIS would’ve come back with something snarky. FRIDAY merely waited patiently.

“But why?” he wondered and hovered down until he waited beside Darcy. “Why is he here? This is just one place. Why hasn’t he stretched his army out even a little? It makes no sense.”

She smiled at him. “Noticed, did you?”

“What’s going on, kid?” he asked, heart in his throat. “You know more than you’re letting on. We can’t help you if-“

“What makes you think I need your help?” she replied archly, raising an eyebrow. “Or that they want your help?”

Insulted, Stark was about to protest when he realized that she had an uncomfortable point. Their intentions had always been good, but the Avengers had aided very little in the past six months. Sure, they’d been basically chasing their tails all around New York, doing their best to suss out the mystery behind the gods but now, faced with those very gods, he was beginning to wonder if perhaps their time wouldn’t have been better spent simply trying to get Joe and Jane Normal out of the city and away from the blasted branch of the World Tree.

Perhaps New York would need to be a ghost town henceforth.

“You know something,” he said instead, flipping back his visor to stare the young woman in the face with his human gaze. He felt so old compared to her – what was she, twenty-five? Thirty at most? – but the exhaustion on her face spoke volumes. She might be minus a goddess but she was still suffering. “Kid. Come on. I can help.”

“The World Tree is protecting the nine realms,” she said with a slight shrug. “All over the universe Thanos comes in and kills half or more of a population. Cleansing. Wooing, in his own sick, depraved way. But he can’t do that here, not so long as that branch-“ here she tilted her chin at the encased snarl of blackened wood, “exists.”

“So he’s going to try to blast it?” Stark could feel his heart slamming against his ribs, painful enough he wondered if he was in the early stages of a heart attack. Wouldn’t that be a bitch? The worst monster the world had ever faced and he might end up a lump in the grass during the big finale? Wouldn’t that just be typical?

“He won’t need to,” Darcy replied softly. “He’s got nearly everything he needs.” She held up her hand and wiggled her fingers. “He’s got a piece of fancy jewelry – a gauntlet – with some jewels. The Infinity Gems. He’s been… collecting them for a while now. If he gets them all, he could wipe out the universe with a snap of his fingers. The ultimate gift to his lady-love, Death. Or so he thinks. Hel’s not impressed with Thanos’s idea of romance, to be honest.”

“JARVIS,” Stark breathed. “I mean… I mean, Vision.”

“Yes.” Darcy’s face had gone still and serene. “But first he needs to get to him.”

Across the clearing the first of the ships had descended and… they could only be described as beasts… were pouring out. They weren’t Chitauri, not exactly, nor were they machines. They were strange and misshapen and the gods met the creatures head-on. The Avengers were among them – Cap shouting orders. FRIDAY, in his ear, was pinging him but Stark could see some thin expression, some weariness, on Darcy’s face.

She _knew_ something.

“It was too easy,” he said suddenly, cold realization seeping up through him. It was as if he’d sunk slowly into a melted ice-floe. “Loki is so glad to have you back… he didn’t question it.”

The Asgardian in question was beside his brother in the midst of melee. FRIDAY’s voice was insistent now, her demands in his ear starting to grow annoying. Cap must be demanding air support. Any other day, any other moment, he’d be obliging, glad to show off, glad to do good, glad to blast the enemies of mankind to kingdom come.

An entire universe past the wormhole.

Black and purple and blue and red. Ships hanging in space – massive. The unending expanse and stretch.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Stark gasped and pounded his chest twice with his fist. He felt queasy and shaky. Even if the World Tree were protecting the planet – the nine realms – from Thanos, it wouldn’t be enough. Not in the end. Not with that kind of force.

Not against a man – no, a monster – who couldn’t die.

“They’re… a decoy,” he whispered. “The gods aren’t doing jack, are they? They’re just there as a distraction.”

Her lips quirked and she looked at him from beneath her lashes. “Anyone ever tell you that you’re too smart, Stark?”

“All the time,” he breathed. Then, stronger, “What do you need me to do?”

Darcy chewed her lower lip, tugging that plush pink between even white teeth and then sighed a ragged sigh. “She wanted to end the world to save it,” she whispered quickly, “but after we… merged… she realized even then that wouldn’t do anything. Thanos needs to be killed. But he can’t. He’s been cursed.”

“Trapped then,” Stark suggested. “Shoved in a black hole.”

“We’d need to get close enough to do that,” she reminded him, voice barely audible. The din around them – the clashing monsters, the screams, the gods fighting with tooth and claw, metal and madness – was overwhelming. Instinctively, Stark’s arm lifted and he blasted a beast through the skull. It’d gotten too close to Darcy.

Fragile, _human_ Darcy.

The one he’d failed so miserably.

What the _fuck_ was she doing still on the battlefield?!

“Do you recall when you called Strange to my bedside?” Darcy asked softly. “How he’d intended on… binding Death? Trying to at least?”

A memory. An orb – like some tacky lawn decoration – just glass, really. At least, to look at. But Strange had been insistent that it was more.

Darcy smiled and whistled three times – low, soft – and suddenly Pietro was at her side, panting.

“Did you get it?” she asked and he, grimacing, dug around in the backpack Stark only now realized he was wearing, and pulled out a simple glass bauble, no bigger than a baseball.

“I hope you respect how many traps I had to dodge to get this,” he grumbled. He wasn’t joking, part of his floppy silver hair was seared away on the side of his head. “And how far I had to go.”

“You could’ve just asked Strange for it,” Darcy pointed out, taking the bauble with careful reverence.

“I did. He said it was traded a few days ago in payment for a very particular spell. To Doom.”

“Ah,” Darcy and Stark said simultaneously.

“Thank you, Pietro,” she added and cradled the orb.

“It is no problem,” he said and was gone again in a blink, reappearing across the battle beside Wanda, who’d taken one of the ships in a move straight out of Star Wars and was using it to bludgeon a small battalion of the beasts, slapping them across the park in wide, sharp swings of the ship.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Stark whispered, the realization of what Darcy intended slowly sinking in.

She grinned sharply, her face pale in the dimming light. A massive ship burst into being above them and, as it lowered, Stark could just make out a huge purple figure – wide shouldered and square jawed – standing in the open hatch as it lowered to the churned earth of Central Park.

“That,” Darcy said, “is the point. You want to help me, Stark? Keep Loki off me.” She smoothed her hair back and breathed deeply once then turned her back on him.

“Gods. Heroes. Myths,” Stark muttered, flipping down his visor and preparing to interject himself in the space between Darcy and Thanos and Loki, “and the world is depending on a kid from the sticks. Fuck me, we’re screwed.”


	27. Chapter 27

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

 

 

He was huge. Taller than Steve or Bucky, who she could hear at the edge of the battle, shouting. Bucky noticed her first, noticed the way she squared her shoulders and tilted up her chin and clasped her hands softly, reverently around the orb in her grip. The smallest of spells that wouldn’t affect a God, no matter what Strange had thought, had planned… but might affect a man. She tucked it away in her satchel and prayed that no one would shove her down before she could do what she had to do. If it broke, they were all screwed.

He was huge. Taller than Loki and Thor, who battled back to back as they had for centuries, moving in an elegant concert, an exquisite dance that had been trained into them from the time they could walk. Thor wielding blunt force, then ducking as Loki shot through where he’d been standing a millisecond before with glittering green magic. She could feel the thrum of her own magic – once his, later corrupted by Hel – pulse in time with his. It longed for him.

He was huge. Taller than even the massive half-human man Hercules had chosen as his vessel, taller than the young adult Groot at the edge of the fray. The massive creature swung branches to and fro and Darcy could feel her thin and strained connection with Hel - the barely there taste of the goddess still within her skin, her duty as handmaiden tugging at her – contemplating and recalling the day that the planet Groots called home had been destroyed by the Titan. It had been centuries prior, long before Loki was born. They’d nearly been wiped out. A few remained, but only a few, scattered around the galaxy.

Thanos was huge and she was walking straight to him.

The mountain of a man took three steps off his ship and met her in the middle of the fray. Around them were screams and shouts, warriors trying to protect their stoic leader and the Avengers finally spotting her as Bucky had spotted her, as Tony had spotted her, and doing their best to fight in her direction.

“My love,” Thanos murmured and flexed his hand in his gauntlet. Five stones gleamed.

“Thanos,” Darcy said. She could feel the memory of Hel’s hand in hers, that deep blue gaze boring into her own. Could hear the goddess’s words. “Gamora sends her regards. She’s rather… perturbed.”

A flinch. Small. Barely noticeable, except for the brief flash of grief behind his eyes. Darcy could almost sympathize; of all people, she could truly understand sacrifice. On the other hand, if it had been Loki, she would have told the universe to burn. So, perhaps not love after all. A kind of love. The best this tired, nihilistic soul could manage. Twisted. Barren. Wrong. All the wrong things done for all the convoluted reasons. Darcy could taste grease and ash in her mouth, could barely hear the screams, the shouts, the flare and flash and fizz of Tony’s blasts.

Uncertain now, Thanos swallowed thickly. It would’ve been cute, how this vicious mass-murderer quailed before her, how his eyes went as soft as they were capable, of the way his fingertips trembled. “I have a gift for you,” he said softly, reaching a single finger out and brushing the hair off her face. If it had been a gauntleted finger, Darcy might have shrieked. It took great willpower to channel Hel, to flutter her eyes closed and recall Loki’s tender touches, his delicate embraces, his fierce passion and pretend that this horrible creature could hold within him even an iota of that passion and care.

“A gift?” Darcy asked archly, raising a single eyebrow. “Do tell.”

He held up the gauntlet. “You know what this is?” He waited for her nod to continue. “All I need is the final stone and then you will have half the galaxy at your feet, worshiping you as you deserve. The rest will join them in due time, of course. Your coffers and halls will be overflowing with souls and those among the living will have worlds free of crowding, suffering, and strife.”

“How generous,” Darcy replied smoothly despite how hard her heart was hammering in her chest, how her mouth felt sandpaper dry and her tongue thick and heavy in her mouth. “You always send me such nice things.” She licked her lips. “Gamora is a lovely handmaiden. You’ve trained her exquisitely; she will serve me well.”

He stiffened and for a moment Darcy thought that she’d overplayed her hand. His adopted daughter’s death had been a necessity, Hel had whispered - her hands ice cold in Darcy’s warm palms – but a useful way to set him off guard.

“I’m glad you approve of her,” he said at last, sounding pained. “She was a work of art.”

“ _Is_ ,” Darcy said delicately, emphasizing the word. “At my side she shall remain a work of art.”

Clearing his throat, Thanos nodded. “I… appreciate the care you are taking with her. She is… special to me.”

“The ultimate gift, really,” Darcy said, lowering her voice. The screams and battle around them were deafening but she knew that he could still hear her. “I don’t need another. She is enough.”

It had been Hel’s final offer of mercy – the sacrifice of Gamora for the galaxy. If Thanos took it and agreed, Darcy could walk away unscathed. Otherwise… well, otherwise.

“Not enough,” he breathed huskily, eyes darkening with, if Darcy wasn’t mistaken, barely concealed lust. Such an expression on that face, on that man, was pants-wettingly terrifying. Darcy barely smothered a squeak, barely kept her face impassive. Hel had been riding around under her skin long enough to make it easier than normal to maintain the expression… but only just barely. “Never enough for you, my love.”

“Then,” Darcy said, heart sinking. “I have a gift for you as well.” She tilted her head up and smiled as seductively as she could manage, pretending this beast was Loki in the back of her mind, remembering the feeling of his long, tapered fingers around her waist, the puffs of hot air on the curved softness of her belly, the feeling of her fingers laced together above her head as he wooed her with words and heat and whispered breath alone. How badly she’d wanted him back then.

How badly she wanted him still.

Thanos’ brows drew together but that expression of _want_ deepened. “In the middle of a battle?”

“You spend so much time a’wooing,” Darcy chided him, flirting for all she was worth, “and don’t wish to reap the smallest reward?” She dug in her bag and pulled out the orb, letting the light catch the curve of glass. “You know what this is?” she asked, mirroring what he’d said before. Thanos frowned at the bauble and shook his head. “It captures a soul… or a mind,” she murmured, flashing her eyes meaningfully at him. “I do believe the Mind Gem is less than likely to hand over its newly acquired body without a fight.”

“True,” he rumbled. Then he smiled. “You are most considerate, lady.”

“Merely following the example a most ardent lover has presented,” she replied demurely. “But first, before my halls are filled and I’m too busy to visit… a kiss.” She leaned her head back and looked at him through the lashed, this time trying to channel the feelings Hel had for the Green Man, the breathless anticipation she’d felt for Life itself, and growing things. Death did not love what she had in spades, she loved Life. If only Thanos had understood that from the beginning, things might have been very, very different indeed.

Obliging her, Thanos stepped forward.

Distantly Darcy could hear shrieking – Stark blocking Loki. Bucky aiding him. Together they shouldn’t have been able to do so, but Natasha was aiding in blocking the magician, and Strange, and Wanda and even Pietro. Where Bucky went, so went Steve’s nation; where Tony went, so did Peter. Thor alone stood at Loki’s side, but unlike his brother he wasn’t struggling to get to Darcy, he was demanding answers.

“SHE CAN’T!” Loki was yelling, trying to gather magic, but was being buffeted by Wanda and Strange, taking two of them together to block him in his experience and desperation.

Chuckling to himself, Thanos leaned down and tenderly slanted his lips across Darcy’s.


	28. Chapter 28

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

 

 

Kissing the Mad Titan was nothing like Darcy had expected.

His lips were rough, but not unpleasantly so – up close he smelled like smoke and metal and something like sandalwood and incense and leather. Heavy, masculine smells. War smells. But the fingers that rested gently on the curve of her shoulders were gentle and tender, as if Hel – the Hel he believed her to be – were a fragile, breakable creature. The world around them faded and Darcy gave what she could; urging him to sink deeper into the kiss. To block out the battle.

To taste and smell and hear and feel only her.

She didn’t know how long she chased his lips, his breath, but after a moment or two – a tangle eternity that was a blink and eons all at once – he growled and that tenderness faded. Thanos tugged her closer, wrapping an arm around her lower back, the other – the gauntleted hand – around the back of her head, cupping her tender skull. His tongue swept the line of her lips, seeking to lick into her mouth and Darcy, caught up in this bizarre moment, moaned and relented. She could sense the coiled tension of him and was startled to feel the nudge of what could only be – she hoped – his insistent member pressing against her hip. It reminded her too much of her father, how large he’d been compared to her tiny size and it took all her effort to not fall into a fugue state, to not regress and panic and lose it. If her left hand hadn’t been cupping the back of his neck and her right gripping the orb for all she was worth, she would have dug her fingernails into her palm to keep calm, savoring the pain to center herself.

 _Well_ , Darcy thought a little hysterically, _apparently guys are guys the galaxy over_.

Holy shit, Hel owed her _big_.

She moaned again and Thanos growled against her lips, gasping for air before plundering her again.

And then…

     Hel.

 

“Now, daughter,” Darcy heard, the barest echo in her brain. “ _Now!_ ”

Moaning slightly louder, crowding her body closer, as if she would climb him like a tree, Darcy brought up her other arm and curled it around his massive shoulders. An innocent gesture, a woman trying to press into her lover’s embrace, that was all it was supposed to be.

The bauble pressed against the tender back of Thanos’ neck and he gasped into her mouth at the chill touch.

Hel’s touch, to be specific.

The strong fingers around her waist slackened, the mouth slanted over her own pulled back. Thanos flexed his hand – the gauntlet creaking – and for a moment Darcy thought that Hel had betrayed her after all, that all her assurances had been nothing more than another awful lie or misunderstanding between the mind of a death goddess and those of a simple mortal woman.

He grunted and twisted the hand behind her head.

Nothing.

“What did you do?” he breathed against her mouth and Darcy took a shaking, tentative step back.

“You love Death… Hel… so much, but you can’t be with her,” Darcy whispered. For a split-second, Thanos was confused, jaw clenching, but then he realized that he’d been duped.

“You’re her vessel,” he said, putting two-and-two together with distressingly rapid speed as she backed further away, three steps, five, seven. “Where is she? I thought she hollowed you out.”

“You thought wrong,” Darcy said with a shrug and then smashed the orb against her knee. Thanos staggered a step forward, arm outstretched. Her knee bled sluggishly where the glass cut deep but then the cuts closed almost immediately.

The battlefield fell suddenly silent.

It shouldn’t have – the din, the screams, the shouts, the chaos of soldiers dying, it should’ve still been all encompassing – but where Gods walked, breathlessness followed.

“What did you do?” Thanos asked again.

Darcy smiled sadly. “What I had to.”

Hel drifted through the crowd, the Green Man at her side, and Thanos swallowed heavily, eyes tracking her. “I love you,” he told her as she pushed gently between Steve and Bucky, edging Loki and Thor aside. “I did all this for you.”

“You did all this for yourself,” she replied gently. “You are tired, Thanos of Titan. Are you ready to go home?”

He shook his head. “I can’t. I’m… I’m cursed.”

“Not anymore, you aren’t,” Darcy admitted, plucking a thin, jagged shard of glass from her flesh and holding it up to the light. Her blood gleamed wet and red for a moment before she flung it to the ground. “Now I’m cursed.”

Behind her she heard the choked sound of Loki’s broken off sob, of Thor’s confused grumble, of Tony’s sharp inhale. Could damn near _smell_ the musty library smugness coming off of Strange.

“That’s impossible,” Thanos said, shaking his head. “It’s-“

A hole appeared in the middle of his forehead, small and black and round. Greenish blood, just a drop, slid down the slant of his nose; then the echo of the report thrummed through the air.

Just behind her, Bucky lowered his gun.

Thanos stood stock still, barely wavering, for a second more before toppling – like a tree falling, like two billion Groots cut off at the roots before their entire world was salted and set ablaze – and slamming into the crunchy grass of Central Park at Darcy’s feet.

“Please excuse me,” Hel said into the stunned and horrified silence, “I have a soul to escort to the Cauldron. Right. Now.” She paused at Darcy’s side and gently laid a tender hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, daughter.”

Darcy shrugged. “Yeah, well, someone had to do it.”

The Green Man dropped to his knees beside Thanos’ cooling corpse and rested hands on his face and chest, murmuring beneath his breath.

“What in the hell is he doing?!” she heard Sam demand of Tony in the background.

“What Life does best,” Wanda replied softly. “Recycling the trash.” As she spoke green shoots broke through the taut purple flesh of Thanos’ corpse, stretching and spreading despite the chill in the air, the ivy and grass and flowers and branches poking out of his vast limbs quickly, breaking down the Titan’s previously indestructible body into its base components.

“Without a body, his soul can’t return,” Darcy murmured. “Which is why speedsters are such a pain in the ass for Hel. She prefers to keep them out of the afterlife as long as possible.” Pietro snorted and Wanda chuckled and Darcy felt long fingers wrap around her elbow, cool hands tugging her away from the thicket growing from Thanos as the Green Man worked his magic.

“You can’t die?” Loki whispered, tugging Darcy’s back against his chest as she thankfully sagged against him, letting her lover take the bulk of her weight for a brief instant, letting him support her.

“I can’t die,” she agreed, swiping at the tears gathering against her lower lids. “But _you_ can.”

“I’m a selfish ass,” he murmured, “but I find this acceptable.”

“One day you’ll die and leave me alone,” she refuted. “I don’t see how this is a happy ending.”

“We have thousands of years to be together now,” he retorted. “Time, Darcy. We’ve got time. To break this curse. To find a way to curse me as well. Something. Anything. But…” he was shaking, she realized as he tugged her hard against him. “But we’ve got more than eighty years at most.”

“Well,” she whispered as he slipped fingers up her jaw, tenderly cradling her face in one of his long, clever hands, his eyes burning with love and fierce, hot possession of her, “I suppose when you put it like that-“

Loki cut off what she was going to say next with the sweetest kiss they’d ever shared.

 

In the following years, Darcy regretted nothing. She was still Hel’s handmaiden – of a sort. The gods visited the realms often now, walking the worlds in their physical shells, popping by every five or ten years with a job for her or Loki or Thor. Tony had been the first to go, a mere thirty years after the battle for Vision’s Infinity Stone. Bruce followed about ten years later, leaving the Hulk with his body. Sam five after that in a car accident of all things. The Hulk continued on for another twenty-five. Clint. Natasha. Wanda and eventually Pietro passed. Peter. Then Strange – though by the time his end came, he was as twisted and odd as his name. Steve and Bucky lasted a hundred and fifty years after the battle before they finally died within a few weeks of one another. Darcy escorted each and every one of them personally to Hel, who met them with open arms and made them comfortable, for Darcy’s sake. Natasha was the only soul who demanded to go again almost immediately. The others took to their rest gladly.

Loki and Thor and Darcy continued on, training new heroes and carving the names of the fallen on the World Tree with the Green Man’s help. Thanos wasn’t the last to attempt to conquer the tiny blue-green marble at the edge of existence and Darcy had promised the Gods who Walked that she would protect her world till her dying breath.

Luckily for the world that took a long, long time, until the stars burned out from the sky and all was ash and dust… and darkness.

Then, and only then, did Hel come for her favorite daughter, her handmaiden, and take her to her well-earned rest.

 

 

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the ride. I know I didn't do the original justice, but I did my best. Thank you for the kudos and kind words.


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